2016 Spartan Invite Exchanges

This year’s Spartan Invite (also noted as MSU Invite in some past years) includes more Michigan teams (read: ALL of them) than historically seen. For the initial years, MSU has tried to focus on inviting out of state teams, giving MSU a great chance to see the League without ever leaving home! For many events we’d see a little Founding Member round robin including DePaul, Kent, OSU and MSU happening along the other invited teams.

But sometimes you can’t hold to tradition because of a multitude of reasons that I wouldn’t hold on anyone. In this case, Kent, BGSU, and DePaul join the fray. They also happen to be stalwart competitors at many past fall quarter Spartan Invites. I sometimes like to consider BGSU and DePaul part of the Michigan region for the pure fact they often play these teams more than anywhere else.

Time	High Seed	Low Seed	Rating	Rating	Predicted Exchange	Exchange if Upset
10:45	MSU	BGSU	53.241	39.874	0.010	2.000
10:45	GVSU	DePaul	55.221	36.784	0.010	2.000
10:45	CMU	Kent	47.964	46.330	0.837	1.163
12:15	MSU	DePaul	53.251	36.774	0.010	2.000
12:15	CMU	BGSU	48.800	39.864	0.106	1.894
12:15	Kent	SVSU	45.494	45.124	0.963	1.037
2:30	MSU	SVSU	53.261	44.161	0.090	1.910
2:30	GVSU	Kent	55.231	46.457	0.123	1.877
2:30	BGSU	DePaul	39.758	36.764	0.701	1.299
4:00	GVSU	CMU	55.354	48.907	0.355	1.645
4:00	SVSU	DePaul	44.251	36.064	0.181	1.819

And then a Title Game

At the end of the day, the last game will be a title game between the top two teams of the above schedule. If memory serves me correctly, this is a first for the Spartan Invite. Or maybe it’s the second time. In the past we’ve mainly seen the best general record declared the title winner, but this time around it will be more like a Michigan Dodgeball Cup. The scoring system to decide the title contenders entails:

• 3 points for win in regulation
• 2 points for win in OT
• 1 point for loss in OT
• 0 points for loss in regulation

Tiebreakers are officially up in the air, and we could see it handled similarly to the old NHL/Champ system. Tie breakers for the Champ system played out as follows:

1. Greater number of Champ Points
2. Greater Win Percentage (W%) (wins over total games played)
3. Greater number of Matches played (that season)
4. Date the Team joined the NCDA (reflected as the lower Team ID)

It is left up to the hosts, MSU, to decide on the final process if it comes to bear. The NCDA wouldn’t impose any policy on that. We concentrate on Nationals, and this title game will count the same weight in the records as any regular season match regardless.

But I have an opinion

But you know me; I have an opinion on a great tiebreaker policy using the Gonzalez system. MSU could decide the tie breaker based on which team had the greater Gonzalez points gained over the day.

Right now GVSU and MSU are predicted to go 3-0 via the Gonzalez exchanges. In this tie, we go to the Gonzalez system and see who gained the most on their rating.

• MSU would gain 0.110 for the lower quality wins on the lower rated BG, DePaul, and SV teams. These team ratings are just not close enough for a #2 ranked MSU team with a +3 home court boost.
• GVSU gains 0.488 for wins on lower rated DePaul and Kent, but gets a slightly bigger boost in defeating a #3 ranked CMU.

This kind of tiebreaker represents that the winner had more higher quality wins than the loser. And according to the currently scheduled matches, there is no scenario where two teams would tie in the Gonzalez exchanges.

I’m available to do these on the fly! Just hit me up. I would even like to see this over using the Champ style points. It would be interesting to see a CMU, who is predicted to go 2-1 but gain +0.588 on their Gonzalez rating, play the next runner up GVSU at +0.488 and 3-0. Or say Kent upsets CMU early, wins on SVSU, but falls to GVSU. They’d end up with +1.624 and more quality wins than GVSU or MSU winning out as they are predicted to do. Just having some fun.

As for that last match?

We don’t know who it may be, but if we went strictly by Gonzalez predictions (which are still correct overall about 80% of the time),

GVSU (55.709) def MSU (50.351+3) for an predicted exchange of 0.764 or an upset exchange of 1.236.

This is the best situation for MSU to do the rest of the League a solid and drop GVSU by the most amount of points possible. As the second ranked team, the nearest to top rated Grand Valley, and as the home team; the duty lies with the Spartans to bring home a title win. On their own court, in their own tournament, for a title I think they just established this year.

Sorry guys. I’m being lazy and not looking up the particular records today. I’m sure MSU has actually declared themselves winners over Kent, OSU, DePaul, BGSU in past Spartan Invites. Feel free to post it up if you have it.

It’s all love.