World Dodgeball Federation Preview

Written by Kenny Mize

THE NCDA TAKES ON THE WORLD!! October 21st-22nd

The World Dodgeball Championships are this weekend, and the NCDA was privileged to receive an invitation to play in this event from Duane Wysynski, President of Dodgeball Canada.

The NCDA will be fielding two teams during this event, USA Blue and USA Red. The two teams are led by two of most experienced dodgeball players in the NCDA. Kenneth Mize (Saginaw Valley) will be leading the USA Blue team, while Jeff Starr (Ohio State) will be leading the USA Red squad. Selecting the teams were hard, we had some long and fierce deliberation between Jeff and Myself. The teams were hard to pick but after a few days we finally figured out our teams. Here I will now go into the depth about the teams and the strengths of each team, also I will include who was our number 1 pick and why for each team. Continue reading “World Dodgeball Federation Preview”

Georgian Civil War II – Gonzalez Preview

North and South are back at it again. Our two college teams in Georgia are meeting for another Civil War double header in Statesboro. In case you were wondering, North Georgia has the Nighthawk and Georgia Southern the Eagle.

The first Georgian Civil War was an induction match for both teams (#42 and #43), with UNG coming out with both wins.

North Georgia starts off with a 37.119, and Georgia Southern starts off with a 37.489 and is given a +1 for home court advantage. That gives GSU the small favor here, but the matches are far from predictive with such a shallow Rating Gap (1.370). Because we have only two matches, we can talk about all the possibilities. Continue reading “Georgian Civil War II – Gonzalez Preview”

Gauntlet Tournament Preview

This Sunday, a handful of historically strong college dodgeball teams will congregate at GVSU Fieldhouse Arena on the campus of Grand Valley State University for the ‘Gauntlet’ dodgeball tournament. As has become the norm, GVSU will be hosting a fall tournament that will provide much more clarity to where each Michigan school stands at this point in the year, because all four Michigan teams will be in attendance. Along with these four squads from the state of Michigan, we also will see Kent State University in the building on Sunday. Before I get into my preview, the schedule for this weekend’s clash in Allendale, Michigan is listed below:

	Main Court	East Court	West Court	Ref
11:15	GVSU v Kent	CMU v MSU		SVSU
12:30	GVSU v CMU	SVSU v Kent	Comb-JV v GV-JV	MSU
1:45	CMU v SVSU	Kent v MSU		GVSU
3:00	GVSU v SVSU	GV-JV v MSU		CMU

Continue reading “Gauntlet Tournament Preview”

Cornhusker Clash

By: Erik Zander (UWP) & Ryan Atz (DePaul)

It’s another year and the University of Lincoln Nebraska is holding the Cornhusker Clash on September 30, 2017. It will involve three teams: Nebraska, DePaul and Platteville. The games will start at 9:00a.m. with a JV match for the first year players followed by the varsity games. Here is the schedule for Saturday.

Teams	Time	Referee
JV Game (New players)	9:00a to 10:00a	Miscellaneous
UNL vs DePaul	10:15a to 11:15a	UWP
UWP vs DePaul	11:30a to 12:30p	UNL
UNL vs UWP	12:45p to 1:45p	DePaul
Scrimmage against Midland University	2:00p to 3:00p	Miscellaneous

In order to get a little more background on the teams, Ryan and I interviewed the captains of each squad. Let’s take a look at what each captain had to say about this tournament and what they are expecting. Continue reading “Cornhusker Clash”

First East Coast Showdown: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

This past weekend MSU opened up the 2017-18 NCDA season with the EA tournament in East Lansing, MI. There were certainly some interesting surprises, but the main point is that dodgeball is back! Now, it is the first chance for some East Coast schools to show what they’re all about.

This Saturday, Towson University has the pleasure of hosting the first event of the season which will also include Stevenson University and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Towson comes in as the top rated team after having their best season ever last year followed by VCU and Stevenson. This will be their opportunity to flex their muscle against some familiar opponents and start the year strong. That being said, Stevenson and VCU won’t make it easy, and are each looking for a statement win. Let’s take a look at some things to watch with each team, from the good to the bad, and even the ugly.

Continue reading “First East Coast Showdown: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

Midway Conference- Preview

It is another season with your favorite content writer, from your favorite region, and it is time to preview the teams in the Midway Conference. It will be interesting to see how these teams do this year and who will reign top dog. The teams in this region are Platteville, DePaul, Whitewater, Northern Illinois, North Park, Nebraska, Minnesota, Eau Claire, and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Let’s look at the teams playing this year. Continue reading “Midway Conference- Preview”

Ohio Preview: A Short Look at Each Team

Tomorrow in East Lansing, Michigan, two of the Ohio teams will begin their 2017-2018 season with Michigan State’s home tournament. This is no small task, as the four Michigan teams in attendance are the same who filled the final four at last years Nationals. Let’s take a look at the Ohio Region. Continue reading “Ohio Preview: A Short Look at Each Team”

Michigan Region 2017-18 Season Preview

College Dodgeball, welcome back… you’ve been missed! The 2017-18 season will be underway soon. In the meantime, let’s kick off a series of articles previewing each NCDA Region one by one. Today I’ll briefly preview what to expect this season in the Michigan Region. Enjoy:

Continue reading “Michigan Region 2017-18 Season Preview”

2017-18 MVP “Short List”

The start of a new season of dodgeball is just around the corner. As we gear up for another year of rubber balls flying at our face at 70mph, let’s take a quick look at what players are on my MVP “short list”. There are so many great players in the league this year. In fact, I think we enter this year with more established names than we do most seasons. With that said, there is a top tier of players who have a legitimate shot to win MVP this year, and they are the only ones who made it on my short list. In no particular order, here are a few players to keep your eye on this season:

Michael Riley (Central Michigan)

Michael Riley was 6th on last year’s All-American list.

I predicted this man would be 2017 MVP at the start of last season, and while he didn’t get the #1 spot due to a rough first semester for himself and his team, Riley did come on strong in the second half of the season. That strong finish to the NCDA season, along with a great summer of Elite Dodgeball, gives me reason to believe he is once again poised to be in the MVP race in 2018. Continue reading “2017-18 MVP “Short List””

A Closer Look at the Region

A Closer Look at the Region- (Midway Conference)

Next year should be a great for our region of the league. Just two years ago there were only three teams: DePaul, Platteville, and Nebraska. Now we have eight teams in our area (UW- Eau Claire, UW-Whitewater, UW-Platteville, DePaul, Northern Illinois, North Park, Nebraska, and Minnesota) and it won’t take long for these teams to be competitive. I interviewed each team and here is what they had to say. Continue reading “A Closer Look at the Region”

All is Fair in Love and War

It’s time to take a break from the craziness that has been the Captain’s Page and all of the rule proposals popping up. Let’s make dodgeball great again! This weekend the University of Akron will be hosting The War, which is the largest and last tournament of the 2016-2017 regular season.

11 teams from 5 different states will come to Akron, OH to compete in The War. Needless to say, it’s a pretty big deal, with a lot of implications on seeding heading into Nationals, take a look at an article by our VP Zigmas Maloni, Status Quo Ante Bellum, on the possible exchanges. There has also been a lot of talk off the court heading into this weekend, which I’m sure will translate into some exciting on court performances.

Continue reading “All is Fair in Love and War”

Status Quo Ante Bellum

The state existing before the war

Rank	Rating	Team
1	56.593	GVSU
7	45.474	MSU
8	43.786	Kent
10	42.489	VCU
11	42.484	PSU
13	41.547	BGSU
16	38.704	Ohio
17	38.078	DePaul
19	37.893	CSU
22	37.459	BW
26	36.737	Akron

I’ve marked this as opinion, as I include stuff we don’t track statistically.

A technical upset is when a lower rated team defeats a higher rated team. The first day of the War includes so many closely rated opponents that it is incredibly unlikely we will see every match predicted correctly. In our Gonzalez system’s current, straight success rate, the higher seeded team will win four of five games. However, this is less likely to apply as the rating gap between teams increases. Any of GVSU’s scheduled games are unlikely to result in a technical upset. CSU vs Akron is much fuzzier; each team has near identical ratings, being only 0.157 difference.

That said, these are the kinds of matches that are a test to the system. The wins and losses and overtimes (8.19% chance of occurrence) at the end of the day will better determine each team’s rating going into Nationals. We’ve never had this many great, even match games for Nationals before. I’m excited to see the results. Continue reading “Status Quo Ante Bellum”

Nationals Preview, Best Case Scenarios: East Coast

Nationals is only a few weeks away people! Not that anyone needed me to tell them that, but as many would expect that means it’s time to start previewing all potential facets of the crazy weekend to come. As a warning, these will be filled with a lot of optimistic thinking but, based on current standings, here are what I think the best case scenarios are for each team on the East Coast heading into Lexington: Continue reading “Nationals Preview, Best Case Scenarios: East Coast”

Chicago Dodgeball Combine

Well, it is the only tournament this weekend and once again it is between two heavy weights DePaul and Platteville. They are playing each other for the 7th time this year, which I believe is the most between any two teams in the league. Both teams will be playing in the Chicago Dodgeball Combine. It will be a double header with the first game starting at around 12:30p.m. Let’s take a look at the teams. Continue reading “Chicago Dodgeball Combine”

King of the Hill Preview!

The following was written by Zachary Parise of the University of Kentucky

Just as I said in my last article, this semester is looking to be one of the best in recent NCDA history. We are only a month away from the biggest tournament of the year and this season has already seen more matches, and more upsets than ever before. This weekend, Western Kentucky University hosts the very first King of the Hill tournament. WKU will play host to Akron University, North Georgia University, and the University of Kentucky. Along with the standard three matches for each, UK and WKU will be playing for the Kentucky state cup for the first time since 2011. Let’s take a look at each team and what to expect. Continue reading “King of the Hill Preview!”