Standings as of 2017-04-11

Nationals 2017 was the NCDA’s 199th ranked event since we began accurate records in the 2011 season. We had 57 matches at Nationals 2017, in a 286 ranked match season.  There were 304 event items in all, and 32 active member teams this year. After the Championship, this is where the League stands at the end of the 2017 Season: 

The Dust Settles After Nationals

Rank Rating Team
1 59.240 GVSU
2 53.908 CMU
3 51.135 MSU
4 50.436 SVSU
5 47.519 Towson
6 47.495 Kent
7 46.853 JMU
8 46.797 UK
9 43.005 OSU
10 42.491 UWP
11 41.793 PSU
12 41.748 UMD
13 41.420 VCU
14 41.138 DePaul
15 40.928 WKU
16 40.514 BGSU
17 40.309 UNT
18 37.754 UWW
19 37.715 NIU
20 37.583 CSU
21 36.971 UNL
22 36.908 UVA
23 36.820 MC
24 36.601 Pitt
25 36.291 GSU
26 35.854 Ohio
27 35.798 UNG
28 34.814 BW
29 34.756 SU
30 34.531 NSU
31 33.761 Akron
32 30.970 Miami

Of the 57 matches played at Nationals, only 8 were upsets (85.96% success rate). The largest being the UWP def BGSU 2-1 upset, but it was still close with a 3.733 rating gap. 7 occured on Saturday and only 1 occured on Sunday, WKU def CSU with a tiny 1 point rating gap.

Championship Repetition

GVSU was the top rated team with a 56.623 Gonzalez rating going into Nationals, and was seeded #1 in the Tournament Bracket with a 57.213 rating.

By the time the 2017 Championship rolled around, it was #1 GVSU (57.684) vs #2 CMU (55.464) with a Rating Gap of only 2.220. The average Rating Gap for the Championship has been just 2.222 since 2011. To put that into comparison, the average rating gap for a historical upset is 2.677. Every Championship matchup has featured similarly rated teams, but there hasn’t been a technical upset…yet.

The past three championships have been fairly consistent statistically, with GVSU #1 vs CMU #2. The rating gap averages 2.236, ranging in the very narrow band of 2.185-2.303. The historical data shows that an upset is a lot more likely given this rating exchange, but an upset just hasn’t occurred yet. The probability appears to be closing.

By defeating #2 ranked CMU (55.464) in the 2017 Championship, GVSU finishes the season with the current highest Gonzalez rating of all time, 59.240. The past record (58.206) was set by GV at the end of the 2016 Season. This is pretty much the standard procedure given the past results. The National Champions usually set the highest rating record, but this is certainly helped even further by a couple of factors: GVSU has won 5 consecutive championships, and has largely gone undefeated in the double strength Nationals matches.

Also, Even More Observation

The Gonzalez system is great at what it does. It predicts any given team’s rating with a high degree of accuracy, exactly when we need it: the Tournament Bracket. The following table shows the National Championships and three different types of seeds those teams had, see the description after for more info:

‘Ship Win Team Seed / Rank Loss Team Seed / Rank
Published Seed Pre Ship Pre Bracket Published Seed Pre Ship Pre Bracket
2011 CMU 51.374 1 1 1 GVSU 48.268 3 2 5
2012 SVSU 51.287 3 1 2 UK 49.925 5 3 5
2013 GVSU 52.800 6 1 5 MSU 51.281 5 2 6
2014 GVSU 55.843 1 1 1 SVSU 53.987 2 2 2
2015 GVSU 56.667 1 1 1 CMU 54.363 2 2 2
2016 GVSU 57.140 1 1 1 CMU 54.956 2 2 2
2017 GVSU 57.684 1 1 1 CMU 55.464 2 2 2

The “Published Seed” notes the seed given to that team under the current system used at the time.

  • 2011, 2012, 2013 used different variations of the NHL/Champ system which had different values based on Saturday performance.
  • 2014, 2015, 2016 used a combo algorithm which included the Gonzalez System as one of it’s parts.
  • 2017 used the Gonzalez System exclusively.

The “Pre Ship” number notes what Gonzalez rank that team had going into the Championship match. Gonzalez standings are updated after each match, so while GVSU was #5 going into the bracket, by the Championship rolled their rating climbed to #1. Impressively, each match was 1 vs 2… with the exception of UK in 2012, who held the 3rd rating at the time. GVSU narrowly held #2 after their loss to SVSU in the final four, just a tiny 0.361 ahead of UK.

The “Pre Bracket” number indicates what Gonzalez rank that team had at the start of the Tournament Bracket play, what they began Sunday with. There were more “shakeups” in 2011, 2012, 2013 but the Gonzalez system is adaptive. The 2013 MSU team might have been rated #6 in Gonzalez going into Sunday, but they won against UWP, made a big upset on SVSU, and later upset Kent. That performance set them up as the #2 rating narrowly behind GVSU. That rating gap was a tiny 1.519, the shallowest rating gap of all the National Championships.

In 2014, we started using the Gonzalez system as part of our seeding for the tournament bracket. In the four Nationals since then, the top two seeds of the Bracket have been sent to the Championship match.

Standings going into 2018

At the end of every season, we revert some of a team’s rating (currently 75%) to the League Average. The League Average (Mean) takes all the team ratings of every team that played a ranked match this season. Using GVSU as an example:

End 2017 Rating: 59.240 * 0.75 = 44.430
End 2017 League Mean: 41.082 * 0.25 = 10.271
Begin 2018 Rating: 44.430 + 10.271 = 54.701

The following table shows the ratings going into the 2018 Season.

Rank Team End 2017 Begin 2018
1 GVSU 59.240 54.701
2 CMU 53.908 50.702
3 MSU 51.135 48.622
4 SVSU 50.436 48.098
5 Towson 47.519 45.910
6 Kent 47.495 45.892
7 JMU 46.853 45.410
8 UK 46.797 45.368
9 OSU 43.005 42.524
10 UWP 42.491 42.139
11 PSU 41.793 41.615
12 UMD 41.748 41.582
13 VCU 41.420 41.336
14 DePaul 41.138 41.124
15 WKU 40.928 40.967
16 BGSU 40.514 40.656
17 UNT 40.309 40.502
18 UWW 37.754 38.586
19 NIU 37.715 38.557
20 CSU 37.583 38.458
21 UNL 36.971 37.998
22 UVA 36.908 37.952
23 MC 36.820 37.885
24 Pitt 36.601 37.722
25 GSU 36.291 37.489
26 Ohio 35.854 37.161
27 UNG 35.798 37.119
28 BW 34.814 36.381
29 SU 34.756 36.337
30 NSU 34.531 36.169
31 Akron 33.761 35.591
32 Miami 30.970 33.498

Overall, we now number 1250 total ranked matches, with only 236 technical upsets. Our overall system success rate is 81.12%.

2017 League Mean Rating* 41.082
2017 Upsets 67
2017 Total Ranked Matches 286
2017 Success Rate 76.57%
2017 Participating Teams* 31

*Excluding UNT, who was the only active, dues paying Member Team not to play a ranked match this season.


That’ll do it for this season. It has been a pleasure being able to work with this data over the season, I’ve enjoyed this over the years.

Keep playing dodgeball.

Author: Zigmister

DePaul Dodgeball #68 & NCDA Director of Officiating

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