Standings are aimed to be released by the end of every Tuesday.
With a massive two day event in Akron (The War II) and the oldest continual running event of collegiate dodgeball (the Michigan Dodgeball Cup), we had enough games played to rival an early Nationals weekend.
In the 2018 Season, we have 43 technical upsets in 169 ranked matches (74.56% success rate) across 26 events. This past weekend, we had 15 Member Teams play 24 ranked matches, 9 of which were technical upsets.
The Gonzalez System is a computer ranking model similar to Elo and is a rating exchange system based on research performed by World Rugby. It has been adapted by the NCDA to the demands of College Dodgeball, but can be tuned and customized endlessly to incorporate accurate data. It has been used to help determine seeds for the Nationals bracket since Nationals 2014, and was used exclusively for the Nationals 2017 bracket.
Technical Upset Spotlight
A technical upset in the Gonzalez System is when a lower rated team defeats a higher rated team. The overall success rate of the system is currently 80.34% based on 279 technical upsets in 1419 ranked matches played since 2010-09-25.
This weekend had nine technical upsets over 24 ranked matches, a 62.5% success rate compared to our overall success rate of 80.34%. This weekend was fairly significant in terms of technical upset percentage of the whole of ranked matches.
Last year’s inaugural The War only had five technical upsets in 21 ranked matches, a 76.19% success rate. This seasons’ The War II had 8 in 21, a 61.90% success rate. In looking back only at the most recent 2017 and 2018 seasons, only the 2017 Ohio Dodgeball Cup really matches that kind of ratio. The 2017 ODC included eight technical upsets in 14 ranked matches, a 57.14% success rate. Further, all three of those events included new teams that were playing their first handful of matches. Of those three events, the 2017 ODC included the most significant upsets with the largest exchanges.
Just to put it into perspective. The Content team is working on another feature article detailing events with the most upsets. Look for that soon.
Akron def WVU 8-0
34.890+1 def 39.152, exchanging 1.326
West Virginia Club Dodgeball joined the League this weekend, playing PSU, Akron, and Miami. Their second match against an Akron home squad falls as the 95th largest exchange out of 279 technical upsets, in the 65th percentile. It’s often the case that we see technical upsets against new teams that haven’t reached that 6 games played mark. We consider teams with less than six games playing under a “Provisional” rating. This upset falls within a standard deviation, and was the largest exchange of the weekend.
SVSU def JMU 4-3 OT
45.802 def 48.493, exchanging 0.635 (1.269 normalized)
When comparing technical upsets, we’ll often normalize an exchange by taking away any OT or Nationals modifiers. An overtime exchange is halved, so in a technical upset the winner takes away less than if they took the game in regulation. As a normalized exchange, this ranks the second largest upset of the day, falling 113 out of 279 technical upsets, in the 59th percentile. This Overtime ranks 21st of 46 overtime technical upsets, out of 113 total overtimes across the Records.
SVSU def Kent 3-1
46.437 def 48.678, exchanging 1.224
SVSU claimed 3 technical upsets in their four matches played over the weekend, plus they managed an OT upset win. Their second upset of the War, against Kent, gave SV a respectable chunk of points. This wasn’t a super rare upset when viewed statistically, but all technical upsets tend to be the largest exchanges on record. A technical upset against a similar rated opponent tends to be SV’s thing, historically. 133/279 in 52d percentile.
GVSU def CMU 5-1
54.046 def 56.250, exchanging 1.220
The title game of the Michigan Dodgeball Cup was the battle between the 1st and 2nd ratings, and GVSU handed Central their first loss of the season in this technical upset. The technical upset was just enough to propel GVSU into #1 for the first time in months, if only by a few tenths of a point. It’s a battle in the top tier. This fell 140/279 in the 49th percentile.
SVSU def Towson 3-1
47.661 def 49.467, exchanging 1.181
Saginaw’s third game of The War was their third technical upset of the weekend. These teams in the 3-7th rating positions are swapping position often throughout this weekend. Everybody was so similarly rated. This ranks 156/279 in 44th percentile.
Ohio def PSU 3-1
40.227 def 41.971, exchanging 1.174
This technical upset is one of the few that wasn’t a top 10 contest. One of the closest rating gaps of the weekend, Ohio nabbed their first win over closely rated Penn State. That makes PSU 2-1 Ohio in the historical matchup. This one was 160/279 in the 42d percentile.
Towson def Kent 4-1
47.240 def 48.815, exchanging 1.157
In this closely rated match, Towson nabs a win a puts their historical matchup at Kent 6-2 Towson. I had mentioned we might have seen a hidden home court advantage with Kent in my preview article, but it didn’t turn out. Towson came to play in the first match of the weekend for either team. Maybe it was the comforts of the charter bus or a spectator boost of the bus driver. Ranks 172 of 279 in the 38th percentile.
Towson def BGSU 3-2
48.398 def 49.096, exchanging 1.070
Only the facts. At the time, this was a contest between the third rating (BG) vs the fourth rating (Towson). The rating gap was -.698 between the two ratings. This technical upset ranks 204 of 279, in the 26th percentile.
Kent def JMU 4-1
47.658 def 47.859, exchanging 1.020
After losing to Towson, Kent went on to defeat JMU in an incredibly closely rated matchup. The historical matchup between these two teams is Kent 8-2 JMU, stretching back to JMU’s inducing matches which included Kent. Their matchup was the shallowest gap of the weekend at just over two tenths of a point. It ranks 258 of 279 in the 7th percentile.
Net Rating Changes
| Rating Changes | Pre | Post | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| SVSU 4-0 | 45.802 | 48.851 | 3.049 |
| Miami 2-1 | 38.218 | 39.975 | 1.756 |
| GVSU 2-0 | 53.986 | 55.266 | 1.281 |
| Towson 4-1 | 47.240 | 48.476 | 1.236 |
| VCU 2-1 | 41.632 | 42.734 | 1.102 |
| Akron 2-3 | 35.364 | 36.279 | 0.915 |
| MSU 0-2 | 43.591 | 43.520 | -0.071 |
| Ohio 1-3 | 40.227 | 39.899 | -0.328 |
| BGSU 2-1 | 48.360 | 48.026 | -0.334 |
| PSU 1-2 | 41.525 | 40.797 | -0.728 |
| CSU 0-2 | 35.181 | 34.294 | -0.887 |
| CMU 1-1 | 56.240 | 55.030 | -1.210 |
| JMU 2-2 | 48.483 | 47.199 | -1.285 |
| Kent 1-2 | 48.815 | 47.454 | -1.361 |
| WVU 0-3 | 40.000 | 36.865 | -3.135 |
Saginaw with a strong showing, winning three technical upsets will usually do good things. They net the largest rating exchange of the weekend.
With such a closely rated matchups, we see a diverse set of net rating changes over the weekend. With the exception of MSU, who played low value exchanges against top rated CMU and GVSU in the MDC, most teams netted a significant enough change over this weekend.
The next step after SVSU saw a handful of teams post positive records and net gains, notably Miami taking the second largest rating boost as they continue a stead rating climb over this season.
West Virginia U enters the Standings with a 36.865, a fairly normal beginning rating for a new team. We’ll consider this provisional until they secure another three games and we can be more confident of where they fall within the closely contested lower half of the Standings.
Ratings, sorted.
| Mov. | Rank | Rating | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| ↑ from 2 | 1 | 55.266 | GVSU |
| ↓ from 1 | 2 | 55.030 | CMU |
| ↑ from 7 | 3 | 48.851 | SVSU |
| ↑ from 6 | 4 | 48.476 | Towson |
| — | 5 | 48.026 | BGSU |
| ↓ from 3 | 6 | 47.454 | Kent |
| ↓ from 4 | 7 | 47.199 | JMU |
| — | 8 | 45.134 | UK |
| — | 9 | 44.227 | UWP |
| — | 10 | 43.520 | MSU |
| — | 11 | 42.734 | VCU |
| — | 12 | 40.797 | PSU |
| — | 13 | 40.502 † | UNT |
| ↑ from 15 | 14 | 40.139 † | WKU |
| ↑ from 16 | 15 | 40.020*† | ZAG |
| ↑ from 18 | 16 | 39.980*† | OS |
| ↑ from 24 | 17 | 39.975 | Miami |
| ↓ from 14 | 18 | 39.899 | Ohio |
| ↓ from 18 | 19 | 39.165 † | UNG |
| — | 20 | 38.979 | UNL |
| — | 21 | 38.586*† | UWW |
| — | 22 | 38.557*† | NIU |
| — | 23 | 38.269*† | SIUE |
| — | 24 | 38.126 | OSU |
| — | 25 | 37.803 | UMD |
| — | 26 | 37.722*† | Pitt |
| — | 27 | 37.599 | DePaul |
| — | 28 | 37.028 | SU |
| → Enter | 29 | 36.865* | WVU |
| ↓ from 29 | 30 | 36.636* | Midland |
| ↑ from 33 | 31 | 36.279 | Akron |
| — | 32 | 36.169 † | NSU |
| — | 33 | 35.569 | UVA |
| — | 34 | 35.442 † | GSU |
| — | 35 | 34.996 | MC |
| — | 36 | 34.397 | BW |
| ↓ from 34 | 37 | 34.294 | CSU |
Movement as of 2018-01-30
* denotes a provisional rating (< 6 matches)
† denotes a team that has not played three games this season, the required minimum games needed to qualify for Nationals.
See the Resource Center for more documentation.
Records, Master Spreadsheet: 2005-Present
Records, Individual Docs: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Systems: Gonzalez Current, Gonzalez Old, Perrone, Champ, LieblichSpec Document: Gonzalez System Spec Doc
