madison ripped off in San Antonio?

[crfrey71]

Also, besides the traditional lowballing of the afternoon corps in the evening show, I thought the visual GE scores were comical saturday night.

[jafar]

i was able to see the drill well in san antonio and it was still pretty dirty,but it was dirty because almost all the moves involve alot of people trying to fly everywhere. there was alot of bumping around and rubbing elbows, even the set at the big punch opener was dirty. also the SCV drill move clones dont help much either

[SkyRyder_FMM]

I don't think anything is fishy at all. You can't compare Phantom and Madison over one night and know what the deal is. Was Madison's score lowballed? I'd like to think so! Was Phantom's score inflated? It's doubtful. We see this all the time and I think, quite frankly, that it's ######## that the lower corps seem to get lowballed score wise. I mean, there is no logical reason for it. When Madison performed, the judges knew Cavies and BD were going to score in the lower 90's. The judges also knew that Phantom, Cadets, and Blue were going to score in the upper 80s/lower 90s. That argument that they lowball the lower corps to leave room is kakaboody ########! If Corps A deserves 10th place and a score of 85, they should get it. It's incompotence....and quite frankly DCI is getting boring and I'm a firm believer in slotting. That being said, I rarely ever disagree with finals placements, but the fun of a corps coming from behind (ala Star '90, Cadets '92, SCV '97) has been sucked right out of this activity. I still think SCV has the show to knock off a couple corps above them...but will that happen? It's doubtful.

I do question the huge drop and the spread between Madison and BK/Boston/and company, but maybe that had a really bad show finals night - the reviews in the review section seem to concur with that theory.

I just hate how the lower corps are always lowballed. I mean in 1988 12 points separated the top 12. Now, it seems like the judges have to make it 20. I know it was about 13 Saturday night, but I feel the 10th - 12th corps were probably lowballed score wise. I mean Madison beat Boston by 1.5 a few nights ago and now they are 3-4 behind. Doesn't make sense to me, unless they had a really bad show. Then again, we never see Cavies, BD, or Cadets experience such drastic drops in score. Why? Because they carry the names Cavies, BD and CAdets. Don't get me wrong - I still think these are the three far and out best corps in the activity, but surely even they have off nights.

Madison did in fact have a bad show in finals. I actually thought they should have dropped a place behind Glassmen. Glassmen did not have a good prelims performance, but cranked out a great show in finals. Also, Madison is still just plain dirty. The guard was dropping equipment all over the place, and that was in a dome with controlled conditions. In both prelims and finals, there were horn line members eating turf. I could not tell for certain the cause of the falls, but at least one in finals looked like he was nailed when two forms merged in the drill and was taken out. Bottom line, Scouts just need to get that monster of a drill cleaned and get the guard to catch what they throw. Once they do that, they will move up in the standings. If they don't, I honestly see Glassmen passing them.

[woodster]

evening show was the first time i saw the scouts. They were definetely a step up from the bottom two groups, and i was sitting there thinking "great drumline, good brass, ok show." I comfirmed with everyone around me that the drill had a ton of individual problems. When deciding where they would place, i figured it was a toss up between BK, Madison, and Boston. I knew Madison had the dirtiest drill, but I guess I was hoping it would have a higher GE value since it was more exciting than the other two groups. But it appeared that dirty drill affected GE and Visual. Overall the score was much too close to Glassmen and too far from BK. BK was good, but they had other weaknesses that Madison didn't. I guess you can't look at where you think a corp should score, because the scoring breakdown gives little emphasis to the individual sections musical performance. I do wish more weight was to music. Madison definetly deserved 10th (or 8th for that matter), but the score was a little obscene. And there drumline was too low for that matter, but I suppose since they were the best section of the corp, we can't complain. Overall, I think this year will be a good experience for my brothers, though not a succesful one for the ranks. Atleast 10th has more respect to it now than when I marched.

[Scerpella]

Well in Visual Performance they scored 10th and Visual Ensemble they were 12th. Vis. Performance definitely is not "subjective,"as it is mostly based on performance (hence the title fo the caption), and Vis. Ensemble is at least partially based on performance. Guard was also 12th. In fact, they scored slightly better in GE than the visual caption (10th in both vis. and music, with at least a .2 spead on 11th place corps; in Vis. Perf. they had only a .1 spread on no. 11.

Plus, in Brass and Music Ensemble they are in a 'solid' 10th place. Percussion they scored 7th.

So really, percussion is their strongest Caption, and the ONLY caption they scored higher than 10th. So saying that "music performance" is "around 6th" is just wrong, no matter how you look at it. They seem to be a solid 10th place corps (at least at this point) across the board, with the exception of percussion.

Nothing wrong with that, especially this year. A lot of strong competition across the board; though I can understand if fans are disappointed after their strong showing last season.

If you go to Steve Musumeches Statistics area here on DCP, thats where I got my informatioin from. Fomr the season averages not from one show.

[jwscv87]

I think the answer lies in exactly what Gellio is describing as something he doesn't like. You just can compare a show where Phantom and Madison are one placement apart to a large regional with all of the top 12 competing. The reality is that slotting does occur when more corps are present. Not conspiracies or foul play mind you, but leaving room for the possibility of a superior performance from corps yet to perform.

IMHO with more corps present spreads from top to bottom tend to increase. I think it is a necessary reality of this judging system.

[Scerpella]

Madison did in fact have a bad show in finals. I actually thought they should have dropped a place behind Glassmen. Glassmen did not have a good prelims performance, but cranked out a great show in finals. Also, Madison is still just plain dirty.

To repeat, the report I got from the Mom of a Scouts from her son was that they were very happy with their prelims performance particularly.

I saw them in Indy and apart from this being a new type of Madsion show I thought they performed well. The music theyve chosen is not really that well suited to peeling paint. I also didnt notice any more dirtiness in their drill than anyone else and I would certainly put theirs in the top echelon for design and difficulty. In fact I thought by comparison some of the top threes shows were easier and dirtier.

There are too many people who want the Scouts to remain DCIs version of the Caballeros, playing the exact same show or type of show every year. I enjoyed the Spanish shows, but my actual favorites over the past 20 years were 88 and 99.

Somehow Scouts have had this "dirty" tag hung on them even when theyre not. It seems that whenever one cant explain why theyre not doing better, its because theyre "dirty". I will get to see them again during finals week so I guess I could change my mind.

[vferrera]

My impressions are just based on video from SA so I won't comment on the music because the recording quality was poor. The drill design for the horns and battery is superb. The best Madison has had in a good long time. The ensemble marching is good enough to convey the visual design, but could still come up several notches, as I'm sure it will. The guard, on the other hand, just isn't there. I don't mean the individual performers - I couldn't really tell from the video. I mean the overall integration and use of the guard just isn't making it. Did the same person who wrote the visual book for the horns and battery also do the guard? Doesn't seem like it. Also, equipment work is scant and unremarkable and the guard is small. This is their major weakness, but it impacts visual performance, visual GE and, indirectly, music GE so it's probably costing them a good 4-5 points. That's really a shame. Again, this is not a knock against the performers. It just seems that they are not being used effectively. If the color guard was used better, all the visual numbers would jump and they would be a lock for top 6.

[LAMystreaux]

Well thank you for sharing!

nah, shrug it off...he's always had a bias against the Scouts...don't know why, but he kinda exhudes a bit of hate towards Scouts....has for years...he's got somethin against them, but oh well. I'm not worry about what he thinks...lol He also predicted Scouts behind BK and Glassmen in Dallas, but that, of course, didn't happen...

Yes you would.

I know who he is. Always chimes in. Right now, there's no way to know who is going to end up where. I still have hopes the Scouts will get this sucker of a show under control, but I had thought that process would be in full swing at this point, whereas it seems like it has yet to get under-way.

Let me translate all of the above. . .

He disagrees with us and doesn't love our corps this year, so lets trash him. :P

Just calling a spade a spade. If Glassmen are as clean as Scouts, then they should be put ahead of them. We'll see if that happens.

[SkyRyder_FMM]

To repeat, the report I got from the Mom of a Scouts from her son was that they were very happy with their prelims performance particularly.

I saw them in Indy and apart from this being a new type of Madsion show I thought they performed well. The music theyve chosen is not really that well suited to peeling paint. I also didnt notice any more dirtiness in their drill than anyone else and I would certainly put theirs in the top echelon for design and difficulty. In fact I thought by comparison some of the top threes shows were easier and dirtier.

There are too many people who want the Scouts to remain DCIs version of the Caballeros, playing the exact same show or type of show every year. I enjoyed the Spanish shows, but my actual favorites over the past 20 years were 88 and 99.

Somehow Scouts have had this "dirty" tag hung on them even when theyre not. It seems that whenever one cant explain why theyre not doing better, its because theyre "dirty". I will get to see them again during finals week so I guess I could change my mind.

And I didn't comment on prelims - only finals. They were not nearly as good in finals as they were in prelims. I believe this was echoed by many others as well. They do have an incredibly difficult drill this year, so your comparisons to the top units is fair. However, Madison is not executing anywhere close to that level.

People have been saying they are not placing higher because they are dirty is because, well, they are dirty. There are still people fighting for position in the forms, people having to move their horns out of the way to prevent their mouthpieces from being crammed down their throat, forms that don't lock, transitions that are not clean, intervals inconsistent across the line, and even several people eating turf in San Antonio (at least one of them appeared to be the result of a collision between two forms that took one of hte horns out), etc. You can see all of this (except for the people falling) from the clips on Season Pass quite clearly.

This has nothing to do with their uniforms, wanting them to return to their old style, etc. It has everything to do with the fact they they have a monster of a show, and they are simply not executing it as well at this time as the competition is executing their shows.

They have cleaned up a ton, but still have a long way to go if they want to move up. They have a good show - they just need to execute it.