All-East Coast 2019

Next on our release of top regional performers is the the All-East Coast team for the 2018-19 season. This year’s eligible teams under consideration were Towson, James Madison, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Penn State, and West Virginia. This list consists of the top performers within the East Coast region, as selected by their peers.

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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”

Border War Could Prove Important for Nationals Seeding

Don’t let the Michigan Dodgeball Cup (MDC) distract you from everything else going on this weekend.  Over in Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) will be hosting the Border War, consisting of teams exclusively from neighbor states Virginia and Maryland.

Why should anyone pay attention?

Well, 3 of the top 10 teams in the country will be present which includes #4 James Madison University (JMU), #5 Towson University (TU), and #9 VCU.  The University of Virginia (UVA) and University of Maryland (UMD) both have an opportunity to move up 2-3 spots in terms of seeding with a win. There will also be three JV teams playing which means we will have the opportunity to see the future of the league.  Here are some headlines to watch out for this coming weekend.

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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

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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”

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.

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Mark Your Calendars for March 26th

Sean Smith and the Towson Tigers will play host to many of the top teams in the country on March 26th in the first ever "MVEC" tournament.
Sean Smith and the Towson Tigers will host many of the top teams in the country on March 26th in the first ever “MVEC” tournament.

In less than a month Towson will play host to one of the most anticipated East Coast tournaments in NCDA history.  The first ever MVEC (Michigan Versus the East Coast) will take place at Towson University on Saturday, March 26th. This tournament will come only a few weeks prior to Nationals, and it should be very telling of where teams stand leading up to the season’s final event.  Below I have listed the attending teams, a few storylines to follow, and the recently released tournament schedule.  Take a look:

 


Teams in attendance at MVEC:

#1 Grand Valley State
#3 Michigan State
#5 James Madison
#8 Towson
#11 Maryland
#17 Virginia Commonwealth

Continue reading “Mark Your Calendars for March 26th”

Previewing Pumpkinfest 2

Time High Seed Low Seed Pre Event Rating Pre Event Rating Predicted Exchange Exchange if Upset
10:00 Towson UMD 44.806 40.985 0.618 1.382
10:00 VCU JMU-JV
10:00 JMU-JV VCU-JV
11:00 JMU UMD 57.207 40.985 0.010 2.000
11:00 Towson Kent 44.806 43.426 0.862 1.138
11:00 PSU VCU 37.644 32.224 0.458 1.542
12:00 JMU Towson 57.207 44.806 0.010 2.000
12:00 Kent PSU 43.426 37.644 0.422 1.578
12:00 UMD VCU 40.985 32.224 0.124 1.876
2:00 JMU Kent 57.207 43.426 0.010 2.000
2:00 UMD PSU 40.985 37.644 0.666 1.334
2:00 Towson VCU 44.806 32.224 0.010 2.000
3:00 JMU PSU 57.207 37.644 0.010 2.000
3:00 Towson JMU-JV
3:00 Kent VCU 43.426 32.224 0.010 2.000

Initial Ratings:

JMU: 57.207 (inc +3 for home advantage) (#3 in Gonzalez Standings)
Towson: 44.806 (#7)
Kent: 43.426 (#9)
UMD: 40.985 (#11)
PSU: 37.644 (#15)
VCU: 32.224 (#24)

JV and B team matches are recorded, but do not count towards primer standings.

You may note there’s a lot of potential exchanges at the minimum, 0.010. This is a sign that those matches are not between teams of similar strength. Over the years, I’ve found our East Coast region to be a sort of microcosm of the entire League. You may also note that JMU’s home rating (57.207) rivals GVSU current neutral court rating (57.357). That’d be a #1 and #2 in Gonzalez rating if GVSU has a chance to visit JMU’s home court again.

JMU Dodgeball Presents: The Fall Brawl

HARRISONBURG – UREC: JMU Dodgeball Presents the Fall Brawl: UMD def TU 3-0, JMU def TU 6-0, JMU def UMD 4-1.

Point by point plays and statistics after the jump. Seriously, great job to JMU’s twitter jockey, major thanks for these as the source. Can’t express that enough. Continue reading “JMU Dodgeball Presents: The Fall Brawl”