BEAST V! I remember the first Beast way back when, and I’m always excited to see how events grow and evolve. We’ll be seeing a new Member Team’s inducting matches at this one, University of Virginia. Exciting. They come in with a Gonzalez rating of 40. Let’s see how it pans out…
| Time | High Seed | Low Seed | Rating | Rating | Predicted Exchange | Exchange if Upset |
| 10:00 | JMU | Towson | 57.307 | 44.531 | 0.010 | 2.000 |
| 10:00 | UVA | VCU | 40.000 | 33.052 | 0.305 | 1.695 |
| 11:30 | Towson | UMD | 44.521 | 41.092 | 0.657 | 1.343 |
| 11:30 | JMU-JV | UVA | 52.307 | 39.695 | 0.010 | 2.000 |
| 12:30 | JMU | UMD | 57.317 | 40.435 | 0.010 | 2.000 |
| 12:30 | Towson | VCU | 45.178 | 32.746 | 0.010 | 2.000 |
| 2:00 | JMU-JV | VCU-JV | 52.307 | 28.052 | 0.010 | 2.000 |
| 2:00 | UMD | UVA | 40.425 | 40.305 | 0.988 | 1.012 |
| 3:30 | Towson | UVA | 45.188 | 39.317 | 0.413 | 1.587 |
| 3:00 | UMD | VCU | 41.413 | 32.736 | 0.132 | 1.868 |
Average Rating Gap: 8.392
A new member: University of Virginia Club Dodgeball
UVA will join the League as the 39th school to play under the NCDA ruleset. A new team is always very exciting. For the introduction into the Standings, their actually is a fair bit of work involved. The new team ID (39) is added into the various formulas and then added into the NCDA Ranking Algorithm, this usually takes about 1-2 hours including error testing. In terms of Gonzalez, a new team is given a rating of 40 which is identical to the World Rugby policy. This marks them as “favored” to win their inducting match against VCU. Looking back at the records, most inducting matches have gone the way of their predictions.
Admittedly, I think 40 might be high for a new team based on a quick eyeball test, and I haven’t done thorough research to see what might be an appropriate rating for a new team. But there is also a counterbalance here. We don’t want to dig too deep a hole on a team just starting out. Within 5-8 matches a team’s rating will equalize and represent a true ranking. Important to note that UVA has brought up they won’t be able to come to Nationals 2016, so by Nationals 2017 we hope they will be able to get a number of games in to establish a firm Gonzalez rating.
The JV Tradition Continues with BEAST V
It’s great to see another JV match scheduled for this event. For the JV matches we don’t supply Gonzalez ratings. They are still listed in the records, but most JV teams don’t play enough to counter balance the long list of factors that would contribute to a true ranking. For the sample exchange for the JMU/VCU JV match, I took the respective varsity team’s initial event ranking and subtracted five. Arbitrary, but I think we can do some research on this to see if we can do a more reliable rating. Anyone think of how that could be done?
Close ratings lead to close games?
Towson and UMD return to the semester with fairly even ratings with just 3.429 difference between them, and have historically been close. A game to watch. While UVA makes their inducting matches, their opponents are within distance. It will be interesting to see how competitive these games can be, and we can compare their performance against a broad spectrum of rankings. VCU is in the lower quarter at 33, UMD is a solid mid range opponent at 41, Towson is a 2nd tier boarder at 44.5, and JMU’s home rating is a solid first placer at 60 even with them slated to play the JV squad.
