BG Invitational Exchanges

Let’s take a quick look at the games being played this Sunday at the Perry Fieldhouse. The three team round robin used to be the bread and butter of NCDA regular season events, and we’ll even see a couple of repeat games this Sunday.

BGSU gets a handy 3+ home court boost, putting them as a #12 team in comparison to their current #18 placing. BW and Akron come in at #15 and #20 respectively, all three teams fall within that special competitive middle tier. All these ratings are a game or two away from climbing or toppling multiple places in the Standings.  Continue reading “BG Invitational Exchanges”

Rule Clarification – Contact on the Opening Rush

Had a couple people bring it up, so a memo announcement for rule clarification.

If two players make contact on the Opening Rush, they are not explicitly out. Incidental contact is permitted.

If the contact is more than incidental, the Official may deem it as Unnecessary roughness or Excessive Physical Contact, and issue the relevant yellow card to the offending player(s) [2016: 3.7.3.2.2].

Players are also discouraged from wrestling for a ball under the Possession Contention clause. This can happen at any time during the game, but is more prevalent on the Opening Rush.

[2016: 3.4.3.2.1] Possession Contention – If two players pick up a ball at the same time and neither player secures possession after two seconds, an Official shall instruct both players to drop the ball and back away towards the Baseline, then place the ball where it was located prior to the players’ contesting possession.

So, a player is not out on the opening rush unless they are hit by a thrown ball, caught out, or makes a boundary violation… normal stuff that occurs at any time in the Match. Contact with the opposing team doesn’t make either player out. Rougher contact can warrant a yellow card at the Referee’s discretion.  Continue reading “Rule Clarification – Contact on the Opening Rush”

Dukes Continue Reign in East Coast

JMU hosted their 3rd annual Pumpkin Smash tournament on Sunday which featured JMU, UVA, Towson, and VCU.  There were a lot of headlines going into the tournament, including JMU and UVA’s first official games of the season and Towson’s chance to knock off JMU at the top of the East Coast Region.  That being said, the biggest piece to take away from the tournament is that JMU still holds control of the East Coast at the moment, but definitely not by the margins they are historically used to.

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Director of League Expansion and Retention: Fall Update

ncda_logo-215x90Much has happened since the start of the season. Many teams are not what they were last season, and newer teams have come into the spotlight of the league for the first time. However, since then, a lot has happened behind the scenes. Here is what your Executive Board and I have been up to when it comes to recruiting new teams for the NCDA. Continue reading “Director of League Expansion and Retention: Fall Update”

Pumpkin Smash to Determine East Coast Power

Despite what the weather outside may suggest, we are starting to creep deeper and deeper into Fall, and thus deeper and deeper into the NCDA season.  There are 3 big tournaments happening this weekend, Kent State’s Summer Street Slugfest, CMU’s Dodgetoberfest, and JMU’s Pumpkin Smash.  Each tournament will have big implications in their respective regions, and try to provide a clearer image of the overall power structure in each region.

The Pumpkin Smash will be particularly interesting to see this year though.  Traditionally, JMU has been seen as the untouchable power atop the East Coast region since their arrival into the league.  However, during the Spring Semester of last season, Towson was finally able to top JMU during their home tournament 3-1.  At the end of the year, JMU still finished as the highest ranked team in the East Coast, but it begs the question, are we going to see a change in power this season?  Perhaps only time will tell, whether it is this weekend or even further into the future.  One thing is for certain though, there will be some heavily heated and highly competitive dodgeball across the country this weekend.

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Northern Illinois joins the NCDA at the DUI

DePaul University Invite (DUI) Recap

In the annual DUI tournament on October 16, DePaul hosted two teams, University of Wisconsin Platteville and Northern Illinois University. Overall, it was a great day, Platteville and DePaul played another competitive match and Northern Illinois had their induction match into the league. So here is a break down of how the day went.

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CMU Dodgetober Fest Exchanges

A quick preview here:

CMU at home is a given a hefty boost, but is not out of range for MSU. If we take away this home court advantage, both teams are neck and neck. An MSU / SVSU match on neutral court isn’t out of reach for a SV upset. Pretty close, only about 5 points difference in ratings.

Good points can be gained for SV by upsetting either competitor. I’ve mentioned it before but it remains true with each new match: out of any team in Michigan, SV gains the most from winning.

High Seed Low Seed Rating Rating Predicted Exchange Exchange if Upset
CMU MSU 52.484 49.308 0.682 1.318
CMU SVSU 53.167 43.968 0.080 1.920
MSU SVSU 48.625 43.888 0.526 1.474

The Roads Most Traveled

Hunter Ford asks: Who has had the most miles traveled?

Those formulas were rather difficult to figure out utilizing Google Sheets (Google’s version of Microsoft Excel), but after well over a year of testing, I finally did it. This sheet takes all of our active teams and finds the distance between them using a complex formula which mimics the functionality of a web-crawler. It will then generate a report which will show the total unique distance traveled to and from an Event for each team. Meaning, Kent will not get credit for traveling to BGSU four times last year for each game they played at Nationals, it will only give them one credit for travel to and from BGSU for Nationals.

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Summit Street Slugfest Exchanges

Miami rejoins the NCDA after two seasons of inactivity. This is of great credit to a freshman who last played for Miami at Nationals 2014. It is also the first time a team will return after this sort of inactivity, in the history of the NCDA. Miami finished the 2014 Season with 33.208, and through two “regression to the means” Miami will reenter the 2017 season with a 37.987 rating. This will put Miami at about #17 in this week’s standings.

In terms of this third Summit Street Slugfest, the parity is spotty. We have a few potential minimum value matches here, but yet the same number of close ones. Akron, Miami, and BGSU are part of a highly competitive section of ratings and will see good competition in their matches. But OSU and Kent are old rivals, having participated in the first intercollegiate dodgeball match in history. They are the heavyweights of the day, Kent moreso with a home court boost.  Continue reading “Summit Street Slugfest Exchanges”

Pumpkin Smash 2k16 Exchanges

Pumpkin Smash has become the fall mainstay, and here we have a small event with everyone current to Virginia… plus Towson. This will be the first matches of the Season for JMU and UVA.

An interesting observation, both UVA and VCU are potential contenders come their scheduled third round match, but the end weight of that match relies on the previous rounds. VCU has one of the smallest gaps on JMU in the history between these two in-state rivals. While VCU has gained ground this season, JMU’s historical rating lends them the favor. A VCU upset in the second round would be a good boost for their program, and cause an even larger gap for UVA in the third round.

JMU / Towson shares a similar outcome. As predicted, this match will be the closest of the day, but that relies on prior victories on VCU and UVA. Continue reading “Pumpkin Smash 2k16 Exchanges”

What We Learned In Akron

The University of Akron hosted their second annual Pink Out Tournament this Saturday which featured Akron, BGSU, Kent State, UK, OU, VCU, and WKU.  Needless to say, it was an exciting tournament overall and a chance to see a ton of competitive dodgeball.  After taking a 7.5 hour drive back to Richmond, it gave me time to think about the tournament, and the key takeaways from this weekend.  Here are my biggest observations.

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