This coming Saturday, two National Collegiate Dodgeball Association tournaments will take place. The 11th annual Michigan Dodgeball Cup will be held at Michigan State University, while James Madison University will host their 4th Big East Appalachian Super Tournament (BEAST IV).
It’s safe to say that this will be the biggest weekend of dodgeball for the NCDA this season outside of Nationals. Seven of the top nine teams in the current NCDA (Champ/NHL) standings will be competing this weekend. It’s easy to see that the results of this weekend will have a huge impact on the NCDA. Here are a few storylines to follow as we prepare for a fantastic weekend of dodgeball:
BEAST IV
This is an interesting tournament in my eyes, because it could end up representing the East Coast region’s rise to becoming the second best region in the NCDA. Back in the fall of 2011 Kent State traveled to the East Coast to introduce NCDA Dodgeball to JMU, UMD, and TU as they all prepared for their first tournament ever. Kent ended up going undefeated at that tournament, displaying they were a far better team than any team in the East. Now, a few years later and all three teams from the East will enter this tournament with intentions on taking down the Ohio schools (Kent and Akron) and proving that they are a quality region.
I mentioned at the end of last year that I thought the EC was top to bottom the second best region in the NCDA, but I think that at least two of the three EC teams in attendance at BEAST IV need to beat Kent in order for them to officially earn that distinction.
Michigan Dodgeball Cup
There are some obvious implications revolving around what happens at the Michigan Dodgeball Cup on Saturday. As always, the winner of this event will own bragging rights in the state of Michigan and will have the privilege of keeping the MDC trophy at their school for the following year. Not to mention the winner generally is considered a favorite to win Nationals a few months later.
This season, the MDC features four teams that are all very close competitively. I don’t want to call it league parity, but it seems like the teams from Michigan enter this weekend on a pretty level playing field. Any team in attendance at MDC could win it all, which is something that couldn’t have been said in the past.
As you have likely read in the previously posted articles, the tournaments this weekend will be heated, and exciting to watch. The 2014-15 NCDA season has already been a great one, and I expect another great chapter to be written on February 14th, both in East Lansing, Michigan, and Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Man… the people playing in these two Events average/mediate to 7th place out of 25 teams in the League.
We need more and more competition between teams below the 72nd percentile.