Standings as of 2017-10-31

The Gonzalez System now includes 260 technical upsets in 1337 (leet) ranked matches. For the 2018 Season, we’re at 24 technical upsets in 87 ranked matches. We’ve also seen twelve JV contests, and four new schools: Midland, Southern Illinois Edwardsville, Gonzaga, and Oregon St. All the following data is current as of 2017-10-31.

If you’d like to know more about the Gonzalez System, please refer to our Spec Doc detailing the system. And as always, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions. 

Technical Upset Spotlight

As a particular consequence of four schools making their induction matches this weekend, we saw 7 technical upsets in our 12 ranked matches played this weekend. A technical upset occurs when a lower rated team defeats a higher rated team.

UNL def Midland 6-1

Our largest upset of the day belongs to an Induction Match. Historically, only six teams have won their Induction Matches out of the 45 schools that have played, and it’s often the case that the established team is below the mean (~40), creating a better chance of an technical upset occurring. This match is the third highest technical upset of any induction match, ranking #62 of 260 technical upsets, in the 76th percentile. UNL gained a slight boost because of Midland’s +1 home court advantage.

SU def UVA 5-0

Stevenson’s second program win in history was their first win in regulation, and they exchanged a hearty 1.350. SU’s rating gap was 3.503 over UVA. It ranks #83 of 260, in the 68.08th percentile.

DePaul def SIUE 3-1

Narrowly less than SU/UVA, this exchange was can be rounded to 1.350. Due to the use of floating point of our Google Sheets, the 1.350 value is rounded from approximately [1.349 794 163 718 94] (If you want to get technical.) It ranks #84 of 260, in the 67.69th percentile. This is the third largest upset for DePaul in a Induction Match out of four… maybe it’s a DePaul strategy to nab an extra bit of rating.

SU def UMD 3-2 OT

The first program win for Stevenson was an Overtime upset exchanging 0.660 after the Rating Exchange was halved, and the 19th greatest overtime upset in the records. In terms of comparing all technical upsets, this one ranks #92 of 260 in the 64th percentile.

UMD def UVA 3-2 OT

The second time these two have gone to Overtime in the past eight months, and this time UMD gets the win. It ranks 25th of Overtime Upsets. exchanging 0.611. Overall, it ranks #127 of 260 technical upsets, in the 51st percentile.

ZAG def OS 5-3

After their earlier win, visitor Oregon State dropped the next game and gave a minor technical upset win to home court Gonzaga. We’ll still need to see a few more games from both teams (ideally 6), before we can be confident. Until then we’ll see more minor technical upsets occur. This was #182 of 260, in the 30th percentile.

OS def ZAG 8-4

In this Induction Match, visiting team Oregon State got the win on host, Gonzaga. Gonzaga received a slight +1 boost for Home Court Advantage, which caused this match to be a Technical Upset. This kind of match has occurred three times, and this minor technical upset is tied for 197th of 260 technical upsets, in the 24th percentile.

Net Rating Changes

Rating Changes	Pre	Post	Change
SU	34.659	36.660	2.001
UNL	36.702	38.132	1.430
DePaul	36.711	37.852	1.141
UWP	43.626	44.216	0.590
Towson	46.456	46.698	0.242
ZAG	40.000	40.020	0.020
OS	40.000	39.980	-0.020
UMD	37.866	37.803	-0.063
Midland	40.000	38.570	-1.430
SIUE	40.000	38.269	-1.731
UVA	39.643	37.463	-2.180

Stevenson’s two victories net them the largest rating boost of the weekend which is solid for posting a 2-1 record. UVA’s 0-3 record net them the largest rating loss.

Towson’s 3-0 record only netted them a tiny .242 which won’t make huge waves in their tier of the Standings. While that tier is competitive, rating gaps are still larger than the lower tiers and often a team needs to make a win against a quality opponent to jump places. Defeating the much lower rated SU and UMD only gave the home court Towson .010 and .013 in tiny Rating Exchanges.

Highly predictable outcomes don’t tend to affect the Standings that much, but on the plus side, we’ve only seen the minimum Rating Exchange (0.010) applied eleven times this season (overall, minimum exchanges have been applied to 216 of 1337 matches). General progress in League parity. The League Rating Spread is 21.810 from top to bottom.

Gonzaga was the most successful new school of the weekend, netting a small +0.020 in their two games, but there are plenty of matches to go for all these four teams. Good luck to all our new schools!

Ratings, sorted.

Mov.	Rank	Rating	Team
–	1	54.835	CMU
–	2	52.666	GVSU
–	3	48.618	JMU
–	4	47.682	Kent
–	5	47.024	BGSU
–	6	46.747	SVSU
–	7	46.698	Towson
–	8	46.269	UK
–	9	44.523	MSU
–	10	44.216	UWP
–	11	41.525	PSU
–	12	40.687	Ohio
–	13	40.649	VCU
–	14	40.502	UNT
–	15	40.139	WKU
→ Enter	16	40.020*	ZAG
→ Enter	17	39.980*	OS
–	16	39.819	OSU
↓ from 18	19	39.165	UNG
↓ from 19	20	38.586*	UWW
→ Enter	21	38.570*	Midland
↓ from 20	22	38.557*	NIU
→ Enter	23	38.269*	SIUE
↑ from 27	24	38.132	UNL
↓ from 21	25	37.909	CSU
↓ from 22	26	37.885*	MC
↓ from 26	27	37.852	DePaul
↓ from 23	28	37.803	UMD
↓ from 24	29	37.796	Akron
↓ from 25	30	37.722*	Pitt
↓ from 17	31	37.463	UVA
↓ from 30	32	36.660	SU
↓ from 28	33	36.169	NSU
↓ from 29	34	35.442	GSU
↓ from 31	35	34.449	BW
↓ from 32	36	33.025	Miami

Movement as of 2017-10-24
* denotes a provisional rating (< 6 matches)

It’s so rare that I get to use the “→” arrow so frequently. Welcome to our four new schools.

Provisional Ratings

Also, now that we have a couple events into the season (couple as in 15!) you will begin to see the * next to any team’s rating, in which the noted team has not played six games in their overall history (not just this season).

As a result of its adaptive nature, the Gonzalez System is much more accurate when a team has more than a handful of games under their belt. Six matches is about what it takes to make a solid evaluation of a team’s Gonzalez Rating. In that amount of games, a middle Rating can generally rise to the top three or fall to the bottom three. In terms of the average event we have around the League, six matches is generally two or three events over the course of the season.

It’s also influential of our policy regarding the three game minimum required for Nationals participation. Three regular season games, plus three double strength games in the round robin of Nationals, equals nine “games” that impact a team’s rating for that Season. Since we use the Gonzalez System to help determine the seeds of the Nationals Bracket, that procedure will give us at least “nine” matches to accurately place a team into their appropriate seed. A more accurate Rating leads to a fairer Nationals Tournament Bracket for all.

(Mostly) Complete History of Inducting Matches

Record keeping for Seasons 2005 through 2010 is incomplete enough that we can’t use them for ranking purposes, but the data we have listed is mostly accurate. Games within an event might not be chronological like they are today, but we can pin down almost every school’s Induction Match date in the stone age records.

Inducting School in Bold!

1. 2005-04-09: Founding: DePaul, Nationals 2005
2. 2005-04-09: Founding: Kent, Nationals 2005
3. 2005-04-09: Founding: OSU, Nationals 2005
4. 2005-04-09: Founding: MSU, Nationals 2005
5. 2005-04-09: Founding: DCC, Nationals 2005
6. 2005-12-03: GVSU def DCC 10-0, Inducting Match
7. 2006-02-18: DCC def OUMI 8-3, Match
8. 2006-02-18: OSU def UK 16-3, Ohio State Invitational
9. 2006-03-26: DePaul def K-State 4-1 or K-State def MSU 2-1, Chicago Dodgeball Open (*could have played DePaul, MSU, or UK first)
10. 2007-04-14: MSU def BGSU, Nationals 2007 (*could have played prior to Nationals, but we think MSU was their Inducting Match opponent at Nationals.)
11. 2007-01-27: OSU def Marshall, OSU Round Robin (*When IDs were assigned, we did not officially whether Marshall or BG played first. Marshall for sure played 2007-01-27, but BGSU’s exact date is in doubt, looking to be in April.)
12. 2007-09-22: GVSU def SVSU 8-0, Battle of the Valleys
13. 2007-11-10: Marshall def WKU 3-1, Kentucky Classic
14. 2008-02-03: CMU, Michigan Dodgeball Cup (*could have played SV, DCC, or MSU first; only CMU listed game: GVSU def CMU 13-0)
15. 2008-04-12: UWP, Nationals 2008 (*only have Day 2 listed, GV def UWP 9-0. Could have played MSU, DePaul, BG, DCC, SV, OSU. Also could have played in the fabled DePaul Triad Invitational in which we have no records.)
16. 2008-10-26: WKU def UofL 7-1, Inducting Match
17. 2008-12-06: SVSU def HFCC 16-0, Inducting Match
18. 2009-03-21: WKU def Miami 8-1, Inducting Match
19. 2010-02-13: WKU def NSU 4-1, St Jude Tournament
20. 2010-04-10: WIU def Kent 4-2, Nationals 2010
21. 2010-11-05: Kent def EMU 3-0, Inducting Match
22. 2011-01-30: MSU def MAD 8-0, Chicago Dodgeball Open
23. 2011-02-12: SVSU def LCC 7-0, Michigan Dodgeball Cup
24. 2011-02-12: K-State def UNL 10-0, Match
25. 2011-11-13: Kent def JMU 4-2, Round Robin
26. 2011-11-13: Kent def Towson 7-1, Round Robin
27. 2011-11-13: Kent def UMD 5-2, Round Robin
28. 2012-03-31: Kent def RIT 4-1, Ohio Dodgeball Cup
29. 2012-10-21: JMU def VCU 9-2, UMD Tournament
30. 2013-03-23: UNT def NSU 4-2, Inducting Match
31. 2013-04-12: UK def PSU 9-0, Nationals 2013: Friday
32. 2013-10-20: DePaul def SAU 6-1, Midwest Mayhem
33. 2013-10-20: GVSU def SHU 11-0, GVSU Invite
34. 2013-10-20: BGSU def DU 7-1, GVSU Invite
35. 2014-11-09: Kent def Akron 8-0, Buckeye Invite
36. 2014-11-15: PSU def SU 7-0, Maryland Invite
37. 2015-03-21: Akron def BW 4-1, Ohio Dodgeball Cup
38. 2015-09-27: BW def Ohio 7-0, BGSU Invitational
39. 2016-02-28: VCU def UVA 7-0, BEAST V
40. 2016-10-01: Akron def Pitt 5-1, Party on Fifth Ave
41. 2016-10-16: DePaul def NIU 8-2, DePaul University Invite
42. 2016-11-05: UNG def GSU 9-0, Georgian Civil War (Dual Induction)
43. 2016-11-05: UNG def GSU 9-0, Georgian Civil War (Repeat)
44. 2016-12-04: DePaul def UWW 3-0, Whitewater Winter Basher
45. 2017-02-25: CSU def MC 5-0, Ohio Dodgeball Cup (Dual Induction)
46. 2017-02-25: CSU def MC 5-0, Ohio Dodgeball Cup (Repeat)
47. 2017-10-28: UNL def Midland 6-1, Induction Match
48. 2017-10-28: DePaul def SIUE 3-1, Platteville Supertastic
49. 2017-10-28: OS def ZAG 8-4, Induction Match (Dual Induction)
50. 2017-10-28: OS def ZAG 8-4, Induction Match (Repeat)

Setting aside our Founding Members, that’s just 6 schools in 45 that won their Inducting Matches, and three of those were dual induction matches.

Since 2010-09-25 we have 27 Inducting Matches in the reliable records: 14 have been technical upsets (won by the lower Gonzalez Rating), 12 were won by the higher Gonzalez rating (as predicted), and just one has been played on neutral court by teams in their first match (CSU def MC at the 2017 ODC).

A statistical quirk

The last 11 Inducting Matches (#36-50) have been technical upsets, not including the completely neutral #45/46 dual induction match. This is mostly because as the League has grown, so has the League Rating Spread. By the nature of average, about half the team ratings will fall below the initial rating given to a new team. This increases the chances that an established team, who is rated below the average, will play a new team that will be rated higher. But since new teams rarely win their induction matches when playing an established team, it’s a quirk when understanding technical upsets across the system.

• Initial Rating = set as 40.000
• League Mean Rating: 40.946
• League Median Rating: 39.492

It’s sort of a question as to what we do in entering new teams into the Gonzalez System. Giving all teams the same initial 40.000 rating, whenever they enter the League, seems like the fairest thing to do and has worked so far. The Initial Rating is slightly lower than the Mean because of League Expansion and Home Court Advantage, but it is also coupled with a myriad more factors that will affect a team being seeded into the Nationals Bracket. We end up with a pretty fair seeding representation. It may result in a large number of Induction Matches being classed as technical upsets, but it’s all part of the adaptive nature of the system.

No Induction Matches have fallen outside two deviations from the mean normalized exchange, which could be a signal that this theoretical induction match was really worth looking into. That would mean it was:

• in the top 12 of our 260 technical upsets
• greater than the 95th percentile of ranked upsets
• a normalized exchange greater than 1.689
• a rating gap greater than 6.889 (33.111 def 40.000)

Only two Induction Match upsets have been fallen outside the statistically significant one deviation from the mean normalized exchange. These two matches were:

• in the top 48 of our 260 technical upsets (#22 and #27)
• greater than the 81st percentile of ranked upsets (91% and 89%)
• a normalized exchange greater than 1.479
• a rating gap greater than 4.788 (35.212 def 40.000)

DePaul (35.311) def SAU (41.000) 6-1, exchanging 1.569 (Gap 5.689)
VCU (34.551) def UVA (40.000) 7-0, exchanging 1.545 (Gap 5.449)

For now, we haven’t seen a technical upset that was truly statistically significant based on standard deviations. The Gonzalez System has built in max/min exchanges so it is partially protected from any one match swaying the system too much.

Most schools to join in one day

The general record of the most teams to join in a single day is Nationals 2005 where the five founding Member Teams (DePaul, Kent, OSU, MSU, and Delta) participated in the first Nationals (then referred to as the Spartan Dodgeball Invite). That general record has stood, but the closest we’ve come in the modern record keeping era was the East Coast expansion of 2011-11-13 (the 2012 Season) with three teams joining in one day, at one event hosted by UMD.

Those three teams are healthy, but the next three teams to join the NCDA on the same day did not fair as well. St Ambrose, Davenport, and Siena Heights all joined on 2013-10-20 but are now either inactive or defunct. St Ambrose hosted UWP/DePaul for their Induction Matches at Midwest Mayhem, but it was the only two matches they ever played. Davenport and Siena played a bit more matches after playing their Induction Matches against other teams at the GVSU Invite. Siena was only active for the 2014 Season (going 3-7) and Davenport was only able to play 6 matches over 2014 and 2015, including 1 forfeit win.

The 2017 Season saw a seven teams join, and two of those teams played each other for their Induction Match. UNG traveled to GSU to face each other in the first ever dual induction match, the double header Georgian Civil War on 2016-11-05. After the New Year, CSU and MC would play in the first dual Induction Match to be played on a neutral court in which neither team had home court advantage, at the Ohio Dodgeball Cup on 2017-02-25.

That brings us to this past Saturday, where four schools joined the NCDA in one day but did it at three separate events. It was still a big day for the teams of the great expansive West, that being the Northwest Region and Midway Conference. Once again, we saw the second ever double header induction match, this time Oregon State traveling to Gonzaga. Platteville hosted DePaul and Southern Illinois Edwardsville , while Midland hosted UNL for their induction.

The same event record stands for the East Coast, but the Western teams nab the most schools in one day.

The most important part is that these four new teams, as well as the seven that joined us last Season, stick around to play some of the best dodgeball in the world. More dodgeball over less dodgeball. It’s all good. Everybody love everybody.

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Please keep in mind that there is a Exec Board vote scheduled on the NCDA Ranking Algorithm; so the Gonzalez system as it appears before you today may or may not be the single system we use for Nationals 2018 at VCU. We’ll release information on the vote as soon as it comes up.