What do you think?
September 15, 2016 by Charlie Eisenhood in Analysis with 1 comments
Here are Ultiworld’s seeding predictions (and associated pools) for the Men’s Division at the 2016 USA Ultimate National Championships:
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C | POOL D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ironside (1) | Revolver (2) | Truck Stop (3) | Johnny Bravo (4) |
| PoNY (8) | Sockeye (7) | Madison Club (6) | Chicago Machine (5) |
| Prairie Fire (12) | High Five (11) | Patrol (10) | HIP (9) |
| Ring of Fire (13) | Doublewide (14) | Dig (15) | Furious George (16) |
Here is the basic reasoning for the seedings presented above, based heavily on the latest USA Ultimate rankings that include postseason performance so far:
1. Boston Ironside – Clear #1 seed, H2H wins over Revolver and Truck Stop, #1 in USAU rankings by almost 100 points.
2. San Francisco Revolver – H2H win over Truck Stop, Pro Flight Finale winner, defending National Champion
3. Washington DC Truck Stop – #2 in USAU rankings, H2H win over Bravo
4. Denver Johnny Bravo – The remaining clear #1 seed
5. Chicago Machine – H2H win over Madison moves them up a slot from #6 USAU ranking
6. Madison Club – #5 USAU, H2H win over Sockeye
7. Seattle Sockeye – #7 USAU, Northwest Champion
8. New York PoNY – #9 USAU, clearly step above HIP in terms of results
9. Houston HIP – #10 USAU, wins over Dig & Furious look better now
10. Philadelphia Patrol – Moved up two slots relative to USAU ranking due to H2H wins over High Five, Prairie Fire
11. Michigan High Five – #11 USAU
12. Kansas City Prairie Fire – #12 USAU
13. Raleigh Ring of Fire – Despite win over PF, hard to justify moving Ring up beyond a bottom four seed given ranking, results.
14. Austin Doublewide – USAU #17
15. Boston Dig – USAU #19, H2H win over Furious
16. Vancouver Furious George – USAU #21
***
Discussion
– Trickiest seed is clearly Prairie Fire. They had a fabulous end to the regular season with wins over Bravo (x2) and Sockeye, but also have losses on the season to Patrol, High Five, and Ring of Fire. They finished ranked 12th, behind High Five, but ahead of Patrol and Ring. You could argue for them anywhere between 11 and 13. Likely, they will end up in the same pool as Ring of Fire regardless, so it may not matter much whether you like Ring above or below them.
– Otherwise, the men’s seeding is relatively straight forward. Even a straight seed by the rankings with no adjustments at all wouldn’t be outlandish. The only teams that moved relative to their rankings in my seedings were Revolver, Machine, and Patrol, all due to clear H2H results.
– Theoretically, you could see PoNY landing above Machine with two H2H wins over them. However, they are nearly 100 points and three spots behind Machine in the rankings. Past experience shows us that USA Ultimate is unlikely to make such dramatic adjustments.
– Notably, these rankings conform to Regionals results, but not by design. Remember that Regionals results no longer bind Nationals seeding.
