Category: Previews
Grand Valley State Gauntlet IV
Grand Valley State Gauntlet IV
Preview and Predictions
Attending Teams: GV, SV, MSU, and CMU
Grand Valley
The Lakers have been everything as expected with a four time defending national champion. Led by Captain Brandon Meisel and the presence of Aaron Terenzi the Lakers have jumped out to a 3-1 record. Their lone loss coming to MSU in their first game. This season was looking to be a different story than in years past for the Lakers after they dropped the opener. Since then they have not only won but dominated. Continue reading “Grand Valley State Gauntlet IV”
Pitt slated to become 40th Member Team
This Saturday, the University of Pittsburgh Dodgeball Club hosts their first tournament and will become the 40th collegiate dodgeball organization to play in the NCDA. Pitt’s Induction Match is the first match of the day and their opponent is the honorable Akron, who joined as the 35th club who joined November 2014. Rounding out the competitors are Ohio and Kent, which will make for a great set of matches for any new team.
I am looking forward to the Pitt/Ohio match because new team matchups are always a highlight for me. I think this will be much more competitive than the current Gonzalez rating suggests, and I will actively compare this upcoming game to future meetings between the two teams.
I’m also looking at Kent/Akron as a good match. These two teams are basically coming from the same area, traveling a similar distance, and playing on a neutral but unfamiliar court. That sets up a great story in this author’s humble opinion.
Towson Throwdown
The East Coast region will finally see its first set of games this weekend on Sunday at Towson University. All of the teams participating are from Maryland and Virginia, which includes Towson, Maryland, Virginia Commonwealth, and Stevenson. This tournament should prove to be tightly contested, and great opener for the East Coast.
| Rank | Team | Gonzalez Rating |
| 7 | Towson | 43.841+3 |
| 12 | VCU | 39.833 |
| 13 | UMD | 39.285 |
| 20 | Stevenson | 37.626 |
Cornhusker Clash
Cornhusker Clash (841 N 14th St, Lincoln, NE 68508)
This week kicks off the first tournament of the year for teams of Nebraska, DePaul, and Platteville. The Cornhusker Clash should be a blast and should provide some quality games for the teams participating. The last time that Nebraska held a tournament was two years ago and Platteville and DePaul attended. These teams all have experience which makes this a much different tournament than two years ago.
Let’s take a look at the teams at the Cornhusker Clash. Continue reading “Cornhusker Clash”
Previewing the Buckeye Invite
We have two big tournaments on Saturday, and two more on Sunday. Today we’ll preview the Buckeye Invite happening this Sunday in Columbus. We’ll use the same 75% carry over we used in the Shootout preview earlier this week. Continue reading “Previewing the Buckeye Invite”
Gonzalez Preview for the Death Valley Shootout
To kick off this weeks massive amount of games played (23+ matches in 4 geographically distinct locales), here are the exchanges for Death Valley! SVSU gets a plus 3 to their rating here for hosting. GVSU/CMU will be close; we don’t get to see this #1 and #2 matchup on a neutral court very often. The closest match of the day may go to CMU/SVSU with a rating gap of only 2.101 going into the day. And I’m personally looking forward to the JV match at the end of the day. All the matches this Saturday will count big for their team ratings.
| Time | High Seed | Low Seed | Rating | Rating | Predicted Exchange | Exchange if Upset |
| 11:00 | GVSU | CMU | 53.984 | 50.548 | 0.656 | 1.344 |
| 12:30 | CMU | SVSU | 49.891 | 48.431 | 0.854 | 1.146 |
| 2:00 | GVSU | SVSU | 54.641 | 47.577 | 0.294 | 1.706 |
| 3:30 | JV |
The Gonzalez Ratings used in this preview are slightly different from previous years. We’ve adjusted the ratings from the start so that a team retains 75% of their rating from season to season. The remaining 25% is reverted to the mean for a particular season. Overall in this 75% carry over system, there’s been 189 technical upsets in 964 total ranked college dodgeball matches, a successful prediction rate of 80.39%. This is compared to the 81.74% success of a total rollover system we’ve used in the past.
While this system is less accurate in terms of the current data, the 75% figure is based on data reported by the Member Teams themselves. Averaging together, team player retention between seasons about 75% of their roster. This added variable helps give the system more “applied mathematical” accuracy that could be more accurate over time. Currently it’s a very small 1.35% variance, only 13 in 964 games.
Way-Too-Early Preseason Top 15
Nationals 2016 was just over a week ago, but that doesn’t stop the content team from producing some articles. This will be the first in a series of Way-Too-Early Top 15 rankings for next season. Below is my personal opinion on who the tops teams will be heading into next year. If you are interested in making a top 15 list of your own, feel free to contact any member of the content team and we will make it happen. If you disagree with my list I expect to see your own top 15 written up! Continue reading “Way-Too-Early Preseason Top 15”
Nationals 2016 Preview
Well folks, Nationals is right around the corner. Here is an extremely brief preview for each attending team.
Gonzalez Exchanges for Nationals 2016
Games played during a Nationals event are worth double, so the exchanges here are calculated then multiplied by two. Taking that, an exchange for an even match will be around two.
We have 10 minimum exchange matches of the 27 total games on Saturday. That’s a bit higher than the League average (242 of 920 matches is 26%, 10/27 is 37%), but take into consideration this is largely a you-call-em focus to scheduling. If I had to schedule GVSU to play three games on the day, they’d have to play #2-4: CMU, MSU, or JMU. OSU is their next higher opponent, but the initial gap is still 11.495 which forces a minimum exchange. Continue reading “Gonzalez Exchanges for Nationals 2016”
Maryland Dodgeball Classic Gonzalez Exchanges
Maryland Dodgeball Classic will be held this Sunday, April 3rd. It seems they share a similar acronym with the Michigan Dodgeball Cup. Heh. MDDC?
- Towson v UMD (h)
- UMD (h) v VCU
- Towson v VCU
We still have a number of games that will be played on the Saturday before at OSU’s event. These team’s exchanges won’t change because they won’t play any of the competitors at OSU, but “total” numbers may vary ever so slightly because there will be more total ranked games and possibly more upsets. Continue reading “Maryland Dodgeball Classic Gonzalez Exchanges”
The 2016 NCDA All Star Game Participants – Presented by Savage Apparel Co.
This year’s College Dodgeball All Star Game will be a bit different than in years past. In 2016, the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association has paired with Savage Apparel Co. for the event. The team uniforms for this match will be provided by this apparel brand at a discounted price. Dry-fit customization uniforms is a great new addition to one of the NCDA’s most recognizable National Tournament traditions: The All Star Game.
This year’s game will feature two players from each NCDA team, with a draft taking place before Nationals weekend. Dylan Fettig and Mike McNicholas will be the honorary captains for one side, while Felix Perrone and Zigmas Maloni will captain the other squad. These four executive board members will rotate picks during the 2016 All Star Draft as they pick their roster for the game.
Listed below are the representatives from each school for the 2016 All Star Game Presented by Savage:
*Let us know in the comment section who your top picks would be if you were an All Star Game team captain!
Continue reading “The 2016 NCDA All Star Game Participants – Presented by Savage Apparel Co.”
MVEC Preview
Oh man, what do I even say about this tournament? It feels like ever since JMU hit the national scene about five years ago that the players between these two conferences have been clamoring for a regular season blowout tournament. Ok, maybe not a blowout, but people have been hoping that as the East Coast Conference has risen the teams over here would be able to face their Midwest counterparts during the regular season. There have been some regular season matchups before (BEAST and other various tournaments), but this marks the first time I can remember that multiple teams from either region have travelled the distance to the other. Saturday looks to be a barometer for a lot of teams heading into April and Nationals. Let’s take a look at the matchups.
Gonzalez Preview for MVEC
We’ll see some great regular season matches this Saturday. Although no particular straight even pairs are seen, we have a handful of rating gaps that are not out of range for the lower rated team. Interestingly, Towson’s home court advantage boost may put them in range to upset JMU and MSU. Upsets here are not unreachable and will allow Towson to make advantageous gains in a number of systems, take a look at a full rundown after the jump!
Average Rating: 50.747
Average Rating Gap: 9.301
Average Predicted Exchange: 0.303
Average Exchange if Upset: 1.930
Gonzalez Preview for BW Invite
A very similar event to the Ohio Dodgeball Cup on the surface, but let’s scratch a bit deeper. There’s plenty of tests on the Gonzalez system here. First, we can take a look at how a #2 team performs against three teams that average a gap of 17 under CMU. Among 963 games there is a strong predictability that these matches won’t be upsets, all of those would fall in the top three largest exchanges.