College Power Rankings, Presented By NUTC [February 19, 2020]

February 20, 2020 by Will Johnson and Steve Sullivan 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.

As bonus content for our subscribers, we also periodically provide expanded notes on our Top 25 teams. Notes for all ranked D-I teams can be found at the bottom of this post, available to Ultiworld subscribers.

D-I Women’s Power Rankings

D-I Women’s Discussion

• Results from President’s Day Invite see several West Coast squads surge up the board. SoCal pair UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego and inside the Top 5 with strong weekends in La Jolla, while Stanford shoots up 10 spots to #7 — their highest ranking since the end of 2017 — thanks to the tournament title.
• It was a disappointing start to the competitive season for Colorado, who plummet to #17 after dropping three games to lower-ranked opponents. One of those foes, California, rises to #16 thanks to a pair of victories over Quandary.
• Despite earning a win over tournament champions Stanford, Colorado’s South Central rivals Texas also slip a few spots after following their undefeated Saturday with a winless Sunday in La Jolla.
• Things are crowded and contentious at the back end of the rankings, with a host of teams seeming pretty interchangeable in the 20s, eliciting strong opinions within Ultiworld’s pool of voting contributors. This week, Brigham Young edges out Cal Poly SLO and Chicago for the #25 spot, drawing the ire of one reporter who threatened to quit if SLO Motion were left out. Here’s hoping it is just a bluff.

D-I Men’s Power Rankings

D-I Men’s Discussion

• Well, it has finally happened: Brigham Young has risen to the #1 spot in our Power Rankings for the first time in program history. CHI’s truly impressive run through the Warm Up gauntlet was enough to claim top billing. We’re already looking forward to their match play against #2 North Carolina next month.
• BYU’s Northwest pals Washington continued to torch all comers in 2020, earning their new #3 ranking with a dominant performance at Presidents’ Day. Only one opponent has put up double digits against the Sundodgers in 16 games this season.
• In the most contentious debate of the week, Michigan edges Carleton for the #4 spot thanks to their shock Warm Up title. CUT looked like the most impressive team in Tampa for some stretches amidst a very tough schedule, but the head-to-head semifinal loss to MagnUM is the deciding factor to push the Great Lakes champions ahead.
• Neither #6 Brown nor #7 Pittsburgh cracked the final four at Warm Up, but they don’t fall too far after splitting a pair of games and posting some impressive results against other Top 5 squads.
• One squad who did earn a spot in the semis in Tampa was Georgia Tech, who correspondingly earn a spot in our Top 25 for the first time this season, joining the board at #19.
• Over on the other coast, Colorado lost three games to the West Coast’s elite — Washington, #8 Oregon, and #9 Cal Poly SLO — by a total of four points. The fourth-place finish isn’t a bad way to start the competitive season, but it does drop them to #10.
• Falling out this week are former #23 Illinois, who suffered through a 2-6 weekend in La Jolla.

D-III Women’s Power Rankings

D-III Women’s Discussion

• With a 5-1 record, North Georgia was one of the most impressive squads at the Royal Crown Classic, earning a spot in the semifinals before the remaining rounds were canceled. They land at #10 this week. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a chance to face off against Southeast rivals Georgia College, who lost in the quarters but still did enough to slide in at #23.
• Commonwealth Cup Weekend 1 played host to several D-III contenders, as Swarthmore rode a successful weekend to #13, losing only to Virginia Tech and claiming a one-point victory over fellow 7500 Clubbers, Catholic. Nun Betta join the rankings at #21, just behind a Mary Washington squad who picked off two D-I opponents in Axton.
• Idle Brandeis and Richmond are bumped off the back end this week, with chances to rejoin the ranks next time out.

D-III Men’s Power Rankings

D-I Men’s Discussion

• The only ranked D-III men’s squad in action this weekend, Georgia College, slides four spots to #20 after dropping a game to unranked Troy at Royal Crown Classic, a loss they later avenged in the tournament semifinals.

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Bonus writeups for each of our D-I Top 25 teams for subscribers below.