May 6, 2019 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 0 comments
After two exciting weekends of Regionals, we now have the full field of teams and the latest rankings update from USA Ultimate. It’s time to start thinking about what the seeding and pools might look like for Nationals.
This is the fourth year that Regionals finish does not bind seeding at Nationals. Please note that we do our best to follow USA Ultimate’s guidelines for seeding: USAU’s post-Regionals rankings are very heavily weighted, head-to-head wins matter at the margin, and historic success is considered. We do not explicitly try to avoid regional matchups.
Let’s kick things off right away with the pools generated by my predicted seeding.
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C | POOL D |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNC (1) | UC San Diego (2) | Ohio State (3) | Carleton (4) |
| Pittsburgh (8) | UC Santa Barbara (7) | Western Washington (6) | Dartmouth (5) |
| UCLA (12) | Northeastern (11) | Georgia (10) | Texas (9) |
| Colorado (13) | Minnesota (14) | Tufts (15) | Wisconsin (16) |
| Oregon (17) | Washington (18) | Northwestern (19) | Cornell (20) |
1. UNC
#1 ranked team by a sizable margin. Head-to-head win over UC San Diego.
2. UC San Diego
Aside from some blemishes at Northwest Challenge when missing their star Dena Elimelech, the most dominant team in the division this regular season.
3. Ohio State
Northwest Challenge champs. #3 ranked and way ahead of Carleton.
4. Carleton
The #4 ranked team. Way ahead of Dartmouth.
5. Dartmouth
The defending champions are going to be a frightening pool two seed.
6. Western Washington
Northwest champs.
7. UC Santa Barbara
I hate this. I hate that UCSB will have to play UCSD — again — at Nationals. But I can’t find any reason to move the teams around. If you really wanted to put your thumb on the scale, you could push Ohio State up to #2 ahead of UCSD, since Fever did get a head-to-head win against the Psychos at NWC. But the totality of the season makes that unreasonably punishing on UCSD. I just have to hold my nose on this one. Maybe USAU will finagle something…
8. Pittsburgh
Clear #8 seed.
9. Texas
South Central champs. No reason to move them off their position in the rankings.
10. Georgia
Southeast champs.
11. Northeastern
Two head-to-head wins over UCLA and this is their spot in the rankings.
12. UCLA
Rankings…
13. Colorado
1-1 vs Minnesota. No reason to move the Ninjas up past the higher-ranked Colorado.
14. Minnesota
See above.
15. Tufts
0-2 v Minnesota.
16. Wisconsin
Rankings still dictating, plus they lost to Tufts.
17. Oregon
Fugue is ranked a good bit higher than Washington despite finishing below them at Regionals. The teams are 1-1 head-to-head.
18. Washington
Rankings are pretty clear at this point.
19. Northwestern
Great Lakes champs.
20. Cornell
Metro East champs.
General Notes
- I did not make a single swap compared to the rankings. I didn’t see any real reason to do so at any point, and all of the teams that were separated by only a few points were still clearly in the right spot based on head-to-head results.
- Really, that UCSD-UCSB matchup is unpleasant. But if you’re UCSD, you want that matchup, so you’re going to make the case that you shouldn’t be punished just for the sake of avoiding a regional rematch. Then again, they’re also 2-0 vs. Western Washington, likely their toughest matchup if they dropped to the #3 seed. So maybe they wouldn’t mind so much after all.
