College Power Rankings, Presented By NUTC [End of 2023 Season]

Our final ranking set of the 2023 spring season.

July 7, 2023 by Ultiworld in Rankings

Ultiworld’s College Power Rankings, presented by the National Ultimate Training Camp! Registration for 2023 is open! Scholarships available. More info at www.NUTC.net

While our College Power Rankings can always be found on our permanent rankings page, for every update 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.

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D-I Women’s Power Rankings

D-I Women’s Discussion

• The largely to-seed results from Nationals meant there is very little movement from our post-Regionals rankings set.
• Bigger wins over common opponents at Nationals sees Vermont leapfrog British Columbia to finish the season at #3.
• Despite regular season results suggesting otherwise, Stanford passed the eye test in Mason by giving national champs UNC their toughest game of the tournament, allowing Superfly to move ahead of both Tufts and Carleton even though all three went out of the tournament at the same stage.
• SUNY Binghamton and Colorado State flip flop after Big Bear’s head-to-head victory over Hell’s Belles in pool play.
• Even with some close calls in the regular season, UCLA were 0-16 against Nationals qualifiers this spring before they got to Mason, but wins over SUNY Binghamton and Victoria give them a decent bounce to finish inside the top 20.
• Georgia had a slow start to the season and fell out of the Top 25 in mid-February, but grew into themselves during the Series and ended up back in the rankings thanks to a pair of wins at Nationals.

D-I Men’s Power Rankings

D-I Men’s Discussion

• With matching runs to the semifinals, both Massachusetts and Cal Poly SLO move up a few places within the top 5 of our final ranking set.
• Getting bounced in the prequarters means Colorado finishes the year lower than at any other point this season at #9. They slide behind an Oregon team that knocked them out of contention.
• Georgia‘s late-season surge continued at Nationals, beating a trio of teams previously ranked ahead of them to move up seven spots to #11, though they still finish below their preseason expectations.
• Two teams from the Golden State went in opposite directions at Nationals, with California just missing out on a major upset in the prequarters while UC Santa Cruz failed to even make the bracket — though they were just the second team all season to claim a win over UNC.¹
• Despite a lot of red on their ledger in Mason, Michigan did pip NC State and played close in every game at Nationals to squeeze back into the Top 25 at the end of the season, pushing former #25 Wisconsin out the back.

D-III Women’s Power Rankings

D-III Women’s Discussion

• Not realizing that they were going the D-III route in 2023, we failed to rank Colorado College for much of the season, but moving up to #6 to end the year feels about right for a program that was at D-I Nationals as recently as 2016. They knocked out fellow former D-I attendees Whitman,² who slump five spots after a three-loss tournament.
• A decent showing from Union — who picked up a pair of wins and played within one point of #5 Williams in the championship bracket in Columbus — shoots them up the board, dragging Southeast champ Berry with them.³
• Joining them Southeast pair with a major rise to end the season are Catholic, who knocked out Michigan Tech in pool play.
• Wesleyan went winless in a brutally tough pool populated with three quarterfinalists, but blowout consolation victories over Occidental and Knox are enough to jump up five spots into the Top 20.

D-III Men’s Power Rankings

D-III Men’s Discussion

• Our preseason #1, St. Olaf spent most of the spring hanging closer to the back end of the Top 10, but a run to semis sees the Berzerkers finish at #3. Their quarterfinal victims, Kenyon, also move into the Top 10 for the first time all season.
• Unranked since late March thanks to some rough regular season results, Berry just about regain their Top 10 spot from the preseason after a three-win showing in Columbus. They slot in ahead of dropping Northwest pair Lewis & Clark and Whitman, both of whom had a Nationals to forget despite high seeds entering the tournament.

1. In a meaningless game after both team’s fates had already been decided. ↩

2. Finalists in D-I in 2016. ↩

3. The Valkyries beat Union at Regionals, but declined their bid to Nationals. ↩