October 2, 2018 by Charlie Eisenhood in Analysis, News with 0 comments
The official seeding and associated pools for the 2018 USA Ultimate National Championships are now here! You can find the game schedules on Score Reporter.
Men’s Division
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C | POOL D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revolver (1) | Sockeye (2) | PoNY (3) | Ring of Fire (4) |
| Madison Club (8) | Dig (7) | Truck Stop (6) | Furious George (5) |
| Sub Zero (12) | Doublewide (11) | Rhino Slam! (10) | Machine (9) |
| High Five (13) | Temper (14) | Johnny Bravo (15) | Chain Lightning (16) |
- Talk about making the regular season matter! USA Ultimate adhered almost entirely to the post-Regionals rankings for the seeding in the Men’s Division, flipping only PoNY and Ring of Fire at #3 and #4, due to PoNY’s 2-0 record against Ring during the season.
- Sockeye was given the #2 seed thanks to their #2 ranking, despite their 13-10 loss to Furious George in the Northwest Regional final. Perhaps even more surprising, Furious George lands at #5 despite a paper-thin resume.
- Many other head-to-head adjustments or boosts for strong Regionals performances were not applied. As a result, our seeding predictions were way off in the Men’s Division this year. Some decisions seem to be predicated on avoiding Regional matchups in pool play, like Rhino being seeded ahead of Doublewide despite a much better postseason performance from DW and a meaningless rankings differential between the two teams.
Mixed Division
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C | POOL D |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMP (1) | Drag'N Thrust (2) | Mixtape (3) | BFG (4) |
| Blackbird (8) | shame. (7) | Space Heater (6) | Snake Country (5) |
| No Touching (12) | Polar Bears (11) | Mischief (10) | Slow White (9) |
| Toro (13) | XIST (14) | Jughandle (15) | Columbus Cocktails (16) |
- Ultiworld’s seeding predictions nearly perfectly matched the official seeding. The only difference was XIST getting seeded ahead of Jughandle (rankings > H2H).
- Mischief was given a two-spot boost in the rankings for winning the Southwest region and posting a 2-1 season record against Polar Bears.
- In general, there was much more nuance in the Mixed seedings than in Men’s or Women’s, where raw rankings were almost the entire driver of team placement.
Women’s Division
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C | POOL D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brute Squad (1) | Fury (2) | Riot (3) | Molly Brown (4) |
| Nightlock (8) | 6ixers (7) | Ozone (6) | Scandal (5) |
| Heist (12) | Phoenix (11) | Rival (10) | Nemesis (9) |
| Schwa (13) | Traffic (14) | Pop (15) | Wildfire (16) |
- Ultiworld’s seeding predictions nearly perfectly matched the official seeding. The only difference was Rival getting seeded ahead of Phoenix (rankings > H2H).
- As expected, Riot was seeded in front of Molly Brown thanks to their 2-0 H2H record. Traffic was also bumped up for their H2H win over Pop.
