The Baller of the Month for February is Cory Heitmann, Assistant Captain of the Cincinnati Bearcats! Helping lead the Bearcats to an undefeated 6-0 record and the Ohio Dodgeball Cup in the month of February, Cory answers some hard hitting questions, and gives a look ahead for UC at Nationals.
To watch his interview, click on the link below:
As the 2022 semester kicks off, one thing can be said for certain about the college dodgeball atmosphere: we are amidst an entirely new league. After practices came to an abrupt end almost two years ago, college dodgeball returned last fall, and with it came an exciting season of close matches, upsets, rookies, and of course, dodgettes (Shout-out to Akron University’s female players for coining the new term).
This article continues to highlight dodgettes across the league: December 2021 graduates, pre-COVID veterans, and new recruits. Stay tuned to hear how they made their name in the league and what they are looking forward to this year; in other words, dodgettes navigating a new league.
Continue reading “A League of Our Own – Nicole Cutich”As the 2022 semester kicks off, one thing can be said for certain about the college dodgeball atmosphere: we are amidst an entirely new league. After practices came to an abrupt end almost two years ago, college dodgeball returned last fall, and with it came an exciting season of close matches, upsets, rookies, and of course, dodgettes (Shout-out to Akron University’s female players for coining the new term).
This article continues to highlight dodgettes across the league: December 2021 graduates, pre-COVID veterans, and new recruits. Stay tuned to hear how they made their name in the league and what they are looking forward to this year; in other words, dodgettes navigating a new league.
Continue reading “A League of Our Own – Bryce Bathras”The following article was prepared by Kevin Bailey, Wes Peters, and Kathryn Mays.
With the March 2022 Power Rankings just released, the top 5 teams in the NCDA deserve a deeper dive. It seems at this point in the season, the top 5 teams in the league have separated themselves a bit from the rest of the pack.
With Cincinnati winning the Ohio Dodgeball Cup, Michigan State winning the Michigan Dodgeball Cup, James Madison putting the hammer down on the rest of the East Coast, Grand Valley State boasting a 13-2 overall record, and Ohio State chugging along as a title contender and up to #3 in the Gonzalez standings, these 5 teams all have had stellar campaigns thus far.
Let’s take a closer look at each team’s resume to get a better understanding of where each squad stands heading into the final month of the collegiate dodgeball season! We will cover these teams in the order in which they were ranked in the March 2022 PR:
Continue reading “Comparing Resumes of the NCDA’s Top 5”Team writeups provided by the NCDA Power Ranking Panel
1) Cincinnati – The Bearcats climb back to the top of our Power Rankings for March, after sitting at 2nd for two straight months. In February, the Bearcats took home the Ohio Dodgeball Cup and dismantled SVSU, Towson, and Cleveland State at their appearance at The War V. This team is one of the deepest teams in the league, and seem poised to make a deep run Sunday at Nationals. One stop left for the Bearcats before Nationals, however, as they host the Clifton Heights Classic on March 26th. Will they be able to close out the regular season sitting atop the Power Rankings and Gonzalez Standings? We shall see, as there appears to be an upstart Bobcats team from Athens, Ohio who may have something to say about that.
As the 2022 semester kicks off, one thing can be said for certain about the college dodgeball atmosphere: we are amidst an entirely new league. After practices came to an abrupt end almost two years ago, college dodgeball returned last fall, and with it came an exciting season of close matches, upsets, rookies, and of course, dodgettes (Shout-out to Akron University’s female players for coining the new term).
This article continues to highlight dodgettes across the league: December 2021 graduates, pre-COVID veterans, and new recruits. Stay tuned to hear how they made their name in the league and what they are looking forward to this year; in other words, dodgettes navigating a new league.
Continue reading “A League of Our Own – Alexis Schultz”
In the 2022 Season, we have 32 technical upsets in 118 ranked matches (72.88% success rate) across 18 events.
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 each Nationals bracket since 2017.
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 79.89% based on 430 technical upsets in 2,138 ranked matches played since 09-25-2010. There was one technical upset since our last standings update.
Continue reading “Standings as of 2022-03-08”We expected a weekend full of quality dodgeball as Akron hosted their 5th annual iteration of The War. What we witnessed, however, was frankly a lot of lopsided matches. Certain teams we anticipated to have great performances came in as advertised. Others left a lot to be desired, and will hope to bounce back strong if they play again before Nationals, or else they will be chewing on those hard truths about the way their team played for the next 5 weeks.
With that being said, there is a lot to unwrap, and a lot to be said about what we saw from each team, whether they performed well, poorly, or somewhere in between. Let’s go team by team and evaluate what we saw.
Continue reading “The War V Recap”As has traditionally been the case with the NCDA’s Baller of the Month Award, January is awarded to an alumni player that is making an impact in the sport.
This year, we recognize former Michigan State player and current member of Grand Rapids Kraken: Tony Stumpo. Stumpo has continued to play the sport outside of the NCDA, and has given back greatly to the league as a notable commentator. In 2022 alone, Stumpo has been on the livestream commentating games at the Grand Valley Gauntlet (January) and Michigan Dodgeball Cup (February).
Check out the full interview above with our January Alumni Baller of the Month!
With the 2022 semester in full swing, one thing can be said for certain about the college dodgeball atmosphere: we are amidst an entirely new league. After practices came to an abrupt end almost two years ago, college dodgeball returned last fall, and with it came an exciting season of close matches, upsets, rookies, and of course, dodgettes (Shout-out to Akron University’s female players for coining the new term).
This article continues to highlight dodgettes across the league: December 2021 graduates, pre-COVID veterans, and new recruits. Stay tuned to hear how they made their name in the league and what they are looking forward to this year; in other words, dodgettes navigating a new league.
Continue reading “A League of Our Own – Anna Moellenbeck”In the 2022 Season, we have 29 technical upsets in 112 ranked matches (74.11% success rate) across 17 events.
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 each Nationals bracket since 2017.
Continue reading “Standings as of 2022-03-01”This past weekend, the sixth annual Zanderthon Throw-Down took place between the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL) and the University of Wisconsin Platteville (UWP). We also got to see UWP alumni in action. The following were the scores for the day.
UNL def UWP 4-0.
Alumni def UWP 4-2
Alumni def UNL 5-0
UWP def UNL 3-2 (OT)
There are a good number of tournaments that our league presents every year, like clockwork. There’s Nationals, of course. That and the Michigan Dodgeball Cup are the two longest running annual tournaments our league boasts. After that comes the Ohio Dodgeball Cup and James Madison’s annual BEAST tournament (by the way, the weekend of March 5th marks the TENTH edition of the BEAST… Unbelievable, but more on that later). This weekend, another yearly event returns to the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association in our post-COVID era. That tournament is of course Akron’s The War V.
This year makes the 5th consecutive (again, COVID not withstanding) year this tournament will be held in Akron, Ohio. This weekend there will be 11 teams in attendance playing 20 matches, 3rd most all time for both, and most since 2019 where at The War III there were a remarkable 15 teams playing 26 matches. By the way, fun fact, The War III’s 26 matches are exactly how many matches have been played total thus far this semester. Finally, each of the 11 teams competing this weekend have played in at least one War prior to 2022.
This weekend is going to be a thrilling one that I would be absolutely sure not to miss. This 11 team tournament will be by far the biggest we’ve had all year long. In attendance will be host school Akron, Bowling Green State, Cincinnati, Cleveland State, Grand Valley State, Miami, Ohio, Ohio State, Saginaw Valley State, Towson, and Wisconsin-Platteville. These teams will compete in an insane amount of thrilling, Nationals Elite 8 quality matchups.
I hope you aren’t tired of random historical War facts, because we’re going to break down each team’s individual performances in past War’s statistically, and give a bit of a preview for what their performance could look like this weekend. Let’s start with the host school, Akron.
As the 2022 semester kicks off, one thing can be said for certain about the college dodgeball atmosphere: we are amidst an entirely new league. After practices came to an abrupt end almost two years ago, college dodgeball returned last fall, and with it came an exciting season of close matches, upsets, rookies, and of course, dodgettes (Shout-out to Akron University’s female players for coining the new term).
This article series highlights dodgettes across the league: December 2021 graduates, pre-COVID veterans, and new recruits. Stay tuned to hear how they made their name in the league and what they are looking forward to this year; in other words, dodgettes navigating a new league.
In the 2022 Season, we have 27 technical upsets in 92 ranked matches (70.65% success rate) across 16 events.
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 each Nationals bracket since 2017.
Continue reading “Standings as of 2022-02-23”
