College Power Rankings, Presented By Project 1 [April 29, 2022]

Plus, a look at each D-I team's dream scenario at Regionals.

April 29, 2022 by Ultiworld in Rankings with 0 comments

The College Power Rankings are presented by Project 1 Sports, providing great ultimate merchandise at affordable prices and empowering our community. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram!

While our College Power Rankings can always be 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.

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D-I Women’s Power Rankings

D-I Women’s Discussion

• After splitting a pair of Conference games with UC San Diego — their first loss to an in-region opponent all season — UC Santa Babara slide a couple spots closer to their SoCal foes, now slotting in at #4 behind a Carleton squad that beat the Burning Skirts at Stanford Invite. D-Co remain at #8 after failing to repeat their upset in the Conference final.
• Expected Conference results elsewhere meant many of our ranked teams — #1 North Carolina, #11 Tufts, #16 Appalachian State, #20 UCLA, and #22 Ohio — held steady this week.
• A first-time nationals qualifier in 2021, Boston University makes their Power Rankings debut after upsetting Northeastern to finish second at Metro Boston Conferences. Uprising enter at #23, pushing the Valkyries down to #24, a drop of five spots from last week. In-region competitors Brown get bumped out the back end of the board to make room for BU.

D-I Men’s Power Rankings

D-I Men’s Discussion

• As was the case in women’s D-I, teams performing to expectations at their respective Conference events kept the Top 25 relatively stagnant this week. One place where a slight upset resulted in a change on our board is the Northwoods, where Carleton CUT knocked off top-seeded Minnesota, dropping Grey Duck down to #19, behind their long-time conference rivals.
• In the only other change this week, Duke‘s disappointing sixth-place finish at Carolina Conferences dropped Brimstone from our Power Rankings, ending an eight-week stint inside the Top 25. They are replaced by Western Washington coming in at #25, who a week and a half ago finished third at Cascadia Conferences, including a split with #22 Oregon.

D-III Women’s Power Rankings

D-III Women’s Discussion

• A big upset at the Southeast ConfRegional event this past weekend helped Berry rocket up the Top 25 all the way up to #7 this week, knocking off previous #5 and 2021 Nationals qualifier, Union. Unfortunately, the region has only one bid to Nationals, leaving a top 10 team on the outside looking in as Berry earned their first-ever College Championship appearance.
• In another region with just a single bid to dole out, #19 Mary Washington demolished Catholic in the Atlantic Coast ConfRegional final, ending Nun Betta’s season and dropping them a few spots to #23 on our board.

D-III Men’s Power Rankings

D-III Men’s Discussion

• At the final Conference event in the South Central region, Sul Ross State came out on top in Texas thanks to a universe point win over #14 Rice. The close call sees Sul Ross drop one spot to #8, inching slightly closer to their in-state rivals on our board. With four teams in the Top 8 and two more further down the Top 25, the South Central is set up to be an absolute rock fight for just two bids to Nationals.
• A fourth-place finish for Florida Tech at the Southeast ConfRegional, with losses to #4 Berry and #16 Union before a season-ending forfeit to Georgia College, drops FIT five spots to #21.

Read below for writeups on each team in our D-I Top 25 Power Rankings!

With 20 spots available at the D-I College Championships, any team ranked inside our Top 25 could realistically believe they have a path to qualifying for the season’s final event in Milwaukee. Whether it be a favorable bracket draw, the right weather conditions, or just the correct combination of players popping off at the same time, there is a dream scenario every college player is conjuring up to justify how their team could qualify and extend their season, or even win their region outright. This week, we go through that same mental exercise, imaging what it would take for each ranked team to land their best-case Regionals outcome.