cg
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Post by cg on Sept 22, 2011 12:55:26 GMT -6
As seems to be a habit of mine, I'm going to suggest something DePaul brought up a few years back, now seeing the wisdom of it.
The suggestion was to score dodgeball like volleyball. Instead of "most points in the allotted time," they volleyball is played as a "first to 3" format. The reasoning DePaul had was that teams would still be in the game until the game was over - so long as Team B still had to score another point, Team A could come back and win. Right now, once it's 3-0, the game is done, even if there's forty minutes left to play.
At the time, I wasn't a fan because a number of schools would travel for one-off games. For instance, if Saginaw Valley were to travel to BGSU for a single game, that's a two and a half hour trip for what may end up being five minutes of dodgeball. Today it seems that these one-off games have gone by the wayside for events where there are 4+ teams, eliminating that concern.
Advantages[/u] Stalling gone forever. Sure, teams may wait on the shot clock, but the prevent defense is gone - both teams are playing to win the whole game long.
No more complaining about time left on the clock. For that matter, no more clock, eliminating the most expensive piece of equipment for hosting games.
No more having to deal with blowouts. Newer teams may still get owned, but they don't have to stand around getting pelted for an extra half hour for no good reason. Older teams won't be throwing arms out unnecessarily just to beat up on some new kids.
Disadvantages[/u] Times of games will vary. Dodgeball Powerhouse State may finish Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow in a couple of minutes while Bowling Green and Kent slug it out for a couple hours, which could be problematic for hosts. There would need to be some test runs to see how long an average game would last.
Beating people may become a larger advantage in larger events. Dodgeball Powerhouse State plows through their opponents in short order while Mediocre Dodgeball Tech takes forever in their matches. DPS may be better off than if both teams played for three hours.
Anyway, just something to think about. Maybe a first to five would be the right fit, I don't know. Just thought I'd throw that back into the mix.
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Post by brettricewku on Sept 22, 2011 14:09:09 GMT -6
The clock isnt that expensive, you can keep clock on your phone bc everyone's phone these days has a stopwatch on it. Also for a tournament such as Nationals teams that are evenly matched could easily go on for 2 hours. That would throw off the schedule for the whole day which would put in jeopardy of finishing all of the games on that day.
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Post by WKU-Perrone-76 on Sept 22, 2011 15:09:16 GMT -6
Yea I'm not a fan of the sets just from an organizers perspective. It would be so inconsistent and teams would literally have to wait by the court for their next game rather than cooling down or whatever teams do in their off time at tournaments. You'd have to say "The first game is at xx:xxpm and your game will be three games after that." "When would that be?" "Beats the hell out of me. Could be in 30 minutes or 6 hours."
Also, for the fact that even if I were to only drive 1.5 hours to UofL and the game only last 20 minutes, I would feel ripped off. Or drive 8 hours to Michigan and only get an hours worth of games out of 3 games, OR have to play 6 hours of games back to back, it would be hell.
Clock keeps it consistent and steady.
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cg
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Post by cg on Sept 22, 2011 15:11:32 GMT -6
Yea I'm not a fan of the sets just from an organizers perspective. It would be so inconsistent and teams would literally have to wait by the court for their next game rather than cooling down or whatever teams do in their off time at tournaments. You'd have to say "The first game is at xx:xxpm and your game will be three games after that." "When would that be?" "Beats the hell out of me. Could be in 30 minutes or 6 hours." Also, for the fact that even if I were to only drive 1.5 hours to UofL and the game only last 20 minutes, I would feel ripped off. Or drive 8 hours to Michigan and only get an hours worth of games out of 3 games, OR have to play 6 hours of games back to back, it would be hell. Clock keeps it consistent and steady. Exactly why I put it in the disadvantage column. Looking at all of last years' games (thanks Zig) I don't think that there's as much of a problem of it running long as it does running short. Lemme confirm.
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Post by Zigmister on Sept 22, 2011 15:14:23 GMT -6
Bomis! Sorry for being so excited but you both mentioned DePaul and i've recorded stats that may be useful in deciding how long a point may last: by way of last seasons records. I've also posted some stats in the respective thread. I didn't make an exact calculation but since there's about 5 points in a match is seems a point takes about ten minutes, by doing some head math. Plus you can probably see how long points last by reviewing a sample case in Nationals 2011, where many matches were recorded, and Raymer has uploaded the many matches that are separated by points. You could quickly look at the length of some of these videos and record how long a point might be. Also, if i had my way i'd establish at least a minimum length of play for court time. That way teams could continue to play the fun way after they decided the match, playing by local team rules or special raptor points and whatnot. That kind of play very beneficial to the cultural advancement/enrichment of the League. EDIT: damn you beat me because i type slow
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cg
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Post by cg on Sept 22, 2011 15:44:53 GMT -6
So I downloaded Zig's spreadsheet 105 games with reported scores (MI v World doesn't count). That should be enough to look at to see how things would shake out in a first to 3 scenario. If there were at least 4 points scored in that game, it could not go long if played in sets - it's either a 4-0 or 3-1 victory. The same goes for a 3-0 victory from last year. Where the concern would be is the 2-1 and 1-0 games. Those could conceivably go longer.
So how many games could possibly have run longer?
19 out of 105, or fewer than 1 out of 5.
Now here's the question: How many of those games were solid dodgeball and how many of those were teams going into a defensive shell and playing not to lose? I'm going to paint with a broad brush here and say that Michigan teams are far more likely to not play dodgeball to win the game than everybody else. So how much of these low-scoring games involve Michigan teams?
Answer: 13 out of 19. So if you assume the non-Michigan teams don't play that way, we're talking 6 games running long over the course of the entire year. Host schools already put flex time into their schedules, so to worry about games running along does not make sense. If there's no incentive for a team to play scared and kill the clock, I think you'll see those games pick up.
But what about games ending early? We want to avoid people getting shortchanged too. We need to define what those games would look like. I'd say at least 8 points scored and a 4-point differential would be a rout and end early. How many of those during the year?
Answer: 11 out of 105. The majority of those were MI teams vs first-year schools + "WGAF about the score" DePaul. Throw in Louisville and we've got 9 out of 11. My question is this: Would these teams prefer to get batted around by MI teams for 30 minutes in "stand there and take it" mode? If not, then the concern about games running short is unjustified.
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Post by hiller 87 on Sept 22, 2011 16:59:45 GMT -6
I'm really really against this, it just seems like you'll change dodgeball for the much worse. Right now I think our game is near perfect (we need to do something about the opening rush) but I'm in the "if it ain't broke" group.
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Post by peters27 on Sept 22, 2011 18:29:07 GMT -6
I've only played one year in the NCDA but I feel like I'd be in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" group as well.
Maybe to eliminate the "stand around and take it" games for new/overmatched teams, implement a mercy rule; like maybe if it's like 4 or 5-0 before halftime or something like that then you could end the game. Or do like somebody else above said (don't feel like reading thru again to give the appropriate credit lol) and once the game's been decided, both teams just start playing for fun (IE, opposite hand throws only) and make a show out of it so far distance traveling teams don't feel cheated
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Post by hillebrp on Sept 22, 2011 18:41:53 GMT -6
I think the sets idea is a lot better. It eliminates stalling, which I foresee becoming more and more of a problem as college dodgeball competition gets tighter and more cutthroat.
One way to even out the time differences thing would be to put a time limit on each point.
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Post by KFitz on Sept 22, 2011 18:46:52 GMT -6
I would love to see points awarded at the half and at the end of the match based on which team has the most people. (or say if one team has 5 more people than the other at the end of a half) a point should be rewarded. The details could be tossed around, but i hate stall ball to any extent, even if its to solidify our own win. That is another way to eliminate the "prevent defense" without changing to sets. Although I would be very interested in trying some set games. Maybe it's just me but I think the game is far from perfect at the moment.
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Post by brettricewku on Sept 22, 2011 18:50:06 GMT -6
I like the mercy rule idea and I feel like we at WKU do play fun games once the game has been decided because in the end, dodgeball is all about having fun.
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Post by hiller 87 on Sept 22, 2011 21:19:22 GMT -6
I think with the new point setup/how Nationals is being run now there isn't a need for a mercy rule...teams are just naturally having fun games once the game is out of reach. There was a time (specifically at Nationals '10 at BGSU) where we probably could have used a mercy rule, but I think that those days are long gone. As far as I'm aware the biggest blowout at Nationals this past year was 8-0, which is by no means running up the score like the 17-0 or whatever it was at Nationals 2010.
Teams will still stall in this "sets" format, in fact they might even more since each out is more valuable. Right now if your team is trailing or tied or whatever a lot of times people tell the last guy to go out of bounds to save time, in the proposed idea people are going to sit in the corner, throw a ball every 10 seconds, and block away. At least, that's what I'd do. Teams (specifically the Michigan teams) aren't going to counter like they do now, they'll slowly take their time and you'll see matches (like the CMU-GVSU title game last year) that take hours. People's arms will be shot. Sure for every game of 2 hours there'll be a game that takes 30 minutes, but that's not going to be fun either.
From a "let's have fun" standpoint the sets will slow down dodgeball even further, from a "competition" standpoint the sets will make put even more pressure on the refs because each individual out will mean even more and from a "safety" standpoint people's arms are going to be shot after playing two hour matches.
So stalling will not be gone forever, it'd probably be increased even more.
Sure it means that less people will complain about the actual clock, but people will complain about every near hit/miss even more and the shot clock will be complained about every game.
I agree with Felix about the organizer's perspective as well. Say for the tournament we're hosting in November teams come and every match gets done in like 30 minutes. Then we'd have the gym for like 3 extra hours. That's 3 hours teams are paying for and not using. Or say every match takes 2 hours and we don't get to play the championship round. Then some team is driving all the way to East Lansing to play two games instead of 3.
This idea just doesn't seem the right way to go for dodgeball. I get that people want to get rid of the stalling defensive technique, but I think it's going to be something that's here to stay until some team can perfect a run and gun offense. I get why some teams hate it, but until there's a better way to have fun and win games at the same time it's going to stick around.
I talked about this with some of the guys at practice today, and they were all overwhelmingly in support of the way we play now.
Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope you guys read it.
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cg
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Post by cg on Sept 22, 2011 21:20:00 GMT -6
I'm really really against this, it just seems like you'll change dodgeball for the much worse. Right now I think our game is near perfect but I'm in the "if it ain't broke" group. Two things: 1) I ain't changing squat, I'm just an idea guy. 2) I think the game is in fact broke. If a team is leading but has only one or two guys out there, they have every incentive to do nothing, holding the game hostage. If a team is trailing and has one or two guys out, their teammates are yelling at him to just run out of bounds - in other words, not play - so that they can get back in. That happened in the GVSU/CMU match, the current setup encourages this sort of thinking.
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cg
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Post by cg on Sept 22, 2011 21:37:46 GMT -6
Teams will still stall in this "sets" format, in fact they might even more since each out is more valuable. Right now if your team is trailing or tied or whatever a lot of times people tell the last guy to go out of bounds to save time, in the proposed idea people are going to sit in the corner, throw a ball every 10 seconds, and block away. At least, that's what I'd do. And with a competent ref you would see a shot clock violation on your nowhere-near-the-target throws so fast it would make your head spin. That to me is the central difference between where our heads are at. You think people would become more afraid of making a mistake. I think that people would become less afraid of making a mistake because those mistakes mean less. "Well, we're probably going to lose this set, but we'll get 'em in the next one. Heck, maybe I can make that catch and get a rally going." As a result, more chances get taken, which means more dodgeball in dodgeball games. Playtesting would be required, no doubt.
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Post by willhack on Sept 23, 2011 2:10:11 GMT -6
Gotta say I'm with Sam on this one, for pretty much his reasons. Some games would certainly go faster, but some would definitely take all day. Additionally, the statistics from last season showing that games going long would be rare aren't perfectly applicable, because we don't know how those games would have gone if this rule had been in place... results would be completely different.
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