What do you think of these seeds and pools?
September 16, 2015 by Charlie Eisenhood in Analysis with 8 comments
Here are Ultiworld’s seeding predictions (and associated pools) for the Women’s Division at the 2015 USA Ultimate National Championships:
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C | POOL D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fury (1) | Brute Squad (2) | Riot (3) | Molly Brown (4) |
| Nightlock (8) | Ozone (7) | Scandal (6) | Traffic (5) |
| Capitals (12) | Bent (11) | Schwa (10) | Iris (9) |
| Heist (13) | Phoenix (14) | Showdown (15) | Nemesis (16) |
Here is the basic reasoning for the seedings presented above, based heavily on the latest USA Ultimate rankings (which include postseason performance so far).
1. San Francisco Fury – Winner of the US Open, head-to-head (H2H) win over Brute Squad, 2-2 v. Riot, USAU #2
2. Boston Brute Squad – H2H wins over Riot, USAU #1
3. Seattle Riot – USAU #3
4. Denver Molly Brown – USAU #4, Losses only to Fury and Brute Squad
5. Vancouver Traffic – USAU #5, 1-1 v. Scandal, much cleaner resume than Scandal
6. Washington DC Scandal – Defending champ, USAU #6
7. Atlanta Ozone – USAU #7, 2-1 v. Nightlock
8. San Francisco Nightlock – USAU #8
9. Quebec Iris – USAU #9, clear placement
10. Portland Schwa – USAU #11, very little nearby H2H info
11. New York BENT – Crushed Capitals at Regionals
12. Toronto Capitals – USAU #10, H2H win over Heist
13. Madison Heist – USAU #12
14. Raleigh Phoenix – H2H over Showdown
15. Austin Showdown – USAU #14, 2-0 v. Nemesis
16. Chicago Nemesis – Clear bottom seed, USAU #21
***
Discussion
– The only really tricky spot is what to do about Bent’s upset over Capitals at Regionals. Final rankings: Caps>Heist>Bent. You could reasonably seed Heist at #11, Bent at #12, and Caps at #13, but that seemed too long a drop for Caps from their final ranking of #10.
– Could Brute get the #1 seed? Sure, there’s a case for it. They dominated at the end of the season, especially at the windy Pro Flight Finale. They got crushing wins over Molly Brown and Riot. That said, they lost their only game against Fury back at the US Open and haven’t shown much in the way of historic success at Nationals. Fury probably deserves the top slot.
– These are mostly straightforward rankings that barely deviate from the end-of-season rankings.
