College Power Rankings, Presented by NUTC [Apr 5, 2019]

April 5, 2019 by Ultiworld, Will Johnson, Lindsay Soo, Michael Ball and Sam Echevarria in Rankings with 0 comments

Here are this week’s College Power Rankings, presented by the National Ultimate Training Camp!

While our College Power Rankings can always been found on our permanent rankings page, every week during the season, we will post the current edition here on the front page to facilitate discussion in the comments and serve as a permalink for each week’s rankings.

This year, we also plan to periodically provide expanded notes on our Top 25 teams as bonus content for our subscribers; notes for all ranked teams in all four divisions can be found at the bottom of this post, available to Ultiworld subscribers.

D-I Women’s Power Rankings

D-I Women’s Discussion

• For the first time since January, we have a new #1: Welcome to the top, Ohio State. An incredibly impressive performance at Northwest Challenge saw Fever knock off almost all of the division’s best squads and earned them top billing heading into the Series.
• Without Dena Elimelech on the field, UC San Diego stumbled for the first time this spring — going from undefeated to carrying three losses by Saturday morning of NWC. But they recovered by the end of the weekend and will be heartened to know they can still compete with and beat Top 10 opposition even without their best player.
• The biggest mover this week is British Columbia. An early season Top 5 team had fallen all the way to #21 after a disappointing opening bow at Stanford Invite, but they were an entirely different beast in Seattle this past weekend, showing the talent and resolve we expected to start the year. They move up seventeen spots to #4.
• Now sitting at #8, this is the lowest Dartmouth has appeared in our Power Rankings since March of 2016. Playing without Claire Trop at Northwest Challenge, Princess Layout nearly went winless against the division’s elite, escaping only with a victory over Whitman in the game for last place. While it’s certainly far too early to count them out, the two-time reigning champs have some work to do if they’re to again be a title threat in Texas next month.
• As we forecasted last week, Northwest Challenge gave us plenty of valuable insight into the relative strength of a block of West Coast squads who had been trading conflicting results all spring. Outside of UBC, the other winners this week were Stanford and Oregon, who move up five and eight spots to #13 and #14 respectively. More importantly than their status on our big board, both teams landed inside the bid cutoff in the final rankings, setting themselves up as favorites to continue their decade-plus long Nationals streaks.
• Falling significantly this week are a couple East Coast counterparts, Pittsburgh and Vermont. While Danger left Seattle with an overall winning record, they only beat a single ranked team. Idle Vermont hasn’t played any top competition since mid-February and drop as their results decay; it appears they’ll hang on to their strength bid by the skin of their teeth, which will give them a realistic shot to emerge from Regionals in New England with a ticket to Round Rock.
• Not all of the West Coast messiness was cleared up by results in Seattle. California did everything they could possibly have done in Tier 2 of NWC, with only three of seven opponents scoring multiple points against them — yet still slide this week. Washington lost plenty, but also own March wins over both British Columbia and Dartmouth, speaking to their top-end potential if they can find some consistency. Along with idle UCLA and Cal Poly SLO, this quartet have a series of conflicting results between them that keep them bunched together. All have the ability to threaten a run to Nationals, but have been inconsistent enough to be on the outside looking in with strength bids.
• With a victory over former #24 NC State at I-85 Rodeo, South Carolina take Jaga’s spot in the rankings and finishing the regular season undefeated. With it looking like a single-bid year for the Atlantic Coast, both squads appear to be major underdogs in trying to earn a spot at Nationals over #2 North Carolina.

D-I Men’s Power Rankings

D-I Men’s Discussion

• There will be no wire-to-wire number one this year: North Carolina‘s multiple losses at Easterns open the door for Brown to take over the top pot. B-Mo’s impressive season continues as they claim the crown in Myrtle Beach. Darkside don’t suffer too much, as their dominance throughout the season keeps them at #2.
• Finally, the Carleton we all knew was in there came out to play. A run to the final at Easterns, including being the first team to defeat UNC this spring, sees them rise eleven spots to #4. There’s a very real argument that they could or should be higher, as they looked incredibly strong with Joe White and Luke Webb back in the fold, even as Dillon Lanier got the weekend off. Early season struggles keeps them behind UNC — for now.
• Both #7 Pittsburgh and #8 Massachusetts had solid enough weekends in Myrtle Beach, though neither managed a truly marquee win. They played close with top squads, but both fell to Oregon, so slip behind a trio of the West Coast’s best.
• Georgia have to see their weekend at Easterns as a disappointment, as they were whallopped by both UNC and Carleton and fall five spots to #24. With their only win against a ranked squad coming against a struggling Auburn — who fall out of the Top 25 this week — they failed to do enough to secure another bid for the Southeast and will head into Regionals needing to play flawlessly to make their way through the one-bid gauntlet.
• By far the biggest loser of the weekend in Myrtle Beach is UNC Wilmington, who had a disastrous tournament finishing dead last and falling out of both bid contention and our Power Rankings.
• Taking the place of the departing squads are new #23 Minnesota and #25 Texas Tech. Grey Duck took care of business and appear to have brought a third bid back to the North Central, which should be enough to keep their Nationals streak alive. Texas Tech makes their 2019 Power Rankings debut in the last week of the season thanks to a third place finish at snowy Huck Finn that included a victory over Michigan.

D-III Women’s Power Rankings

D-III Women’s Discussion

• Tier 2 at Northwest Challenge may have been dominated by Cal, but the rest of the semifinalists were NW D-III squads. Puget Sound finishes the weekend at the top of the pile, while Portland capped a solid weekend with a blowout victory over Lewis & Clark in the third place game. Clearcut moves up to #7 while UPrise slots in right behind them.
• Traveling for the second straight weekend, RPI Strut took a step backwards, suffering four losses to regional level D-I squads at West Chester Ram Jam. They fall six spots to #10.
• Playing a local round robin to reach their ten-game minimum, John Brown blew out Kansas State and Tulsa to finish the regular season 9-1. The #11 team in the country will still face a serious battle to get to Nationals, having to go toe-to-toe with Truman State and a host of other ranked squads to advance from a one-bid South Central.
• Wesleyan FINALLY got some sanctioned games on their ledger in the last weekend of the regular season, though they failed to reach the minimum, dooming the Metro East to a one-bid Regionals. They drop to #12 after splitting a pair of games with Mount Holyoke and picking up a loss to regional threat #19 Skidmore.
• Unlike the success enjoyed by their Northwest counterparts, Pacific Lutheran struggled in Tier 2 of NWC and fall out of the rankings this week after a 2-6 weekend. Joining them in a fall out are North Park, who picked up a blowout loss to unranked Knox at Black Penguins Classic.
• Replacing that pair are new #24 SUNY Geneseo and #25 Swarthmore, who had solid weekends at Garden State 9 and I-85 Rodeo respectively.

D-III Men’s Power Rankings

D-III Men’s Discussion

• Davidson‘s undefeated victory at D3 EastUR carries them up ten spots to #7. The highlight of their performance was a total dismantling of former #2 Richmond, who fall behind their Atlantic Coast rivals to #8.
• Old Capital Invite helped Luther get over their ten-game minimum, but a loss to Minnesota’s B team drops LUFDA a couple spots on our big board to #11.
• The biggest gainers this week are Bowdoin, who recover from the brutal weather at Spring Awakening to with a much better showing at Layout Pigout. Not giving up more than eight points to any opponent all weekend, the dominant tournament champs climb twelve rungs to #12. Their fellow finalists Brandeis also rise this week, up five spots to #13.
• Perhaps unfairly neglected in our rankings for much of the spring, Lewis & Clark put in an impressive performance winning the men’s side of Northwest Challenge’s Tier 2 and enter our rankings at #14, ahead of regional rivals #15 Portland and #16 Puget Sound. The tightly-packed clump will duke it out for a single bid to Nationals in a few weeks.
• For as strong Franciscan had looked at FCS D-III Tune Up at the start of the month, they simply could not solve Brandeis, losing to TRON twice at Layout Pigout and falling ten spots to #17.
• D-III EastUR was the first sanctioned play of the spring for Wesleyan and a middling 3-2 performance leaves them well short of the ten-game minimum as well as dropping them in our rankings to #19.
• The largest drop of the week belongs to #20 John Brown, whose four-loss Huck Finn includes an 11-1 eyesore of a capitulation to Carnegie Mellon.
• Two new squads join our big board this week. Williams‘ undefeated showing at Uprising 8 is enough to see them enter at #20. Truman State end the regular season sporting a gorgeous 12-1 record, but only own a single victory over a team ranked in the top 200; they slot in as #25.
• Falling out this week are SUNY Geneseo and Messiah who each picked up four losses in their final tournament of the regular season, along with idle Elon.

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Bonus write ups for each of our Top 25 teams across all four divisions for subscribers below.