The first bids to Nationals will be earned this weekend.
April 7, 2025 by Alex Rubin in Preview, Recap
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Throughout the spring season, we’ll publishing a bite-sized weekly recap of the action across the college division. This will serve as a supplement to our standard tournament reporting and offer a high-level look at the latest happenings and the biggest stories of the week.
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D-I Women’s
West Coast Best Coast
The regular season concluded last week and we can now focus on the USA Ultimate series, consisting of conference championships which lead to regional championships which lead to the D-I College Championships (Nationals). Over half of the twenty-team Nationals field will come from the Southwest (6 teams) and Northwest (5 teams) regions after the final bid allocations were released last week (see below):
- Atlantic Coast – 1
- Great Lakes – 1
- Metro East – 1
- New England – 2
- North Central – 1
- Northwest – 5
- Ohio Valley – 1
- South Central – 1
- Southeast – 1
- Southwest – 6
As a reminder, each one of the ten regions is guaranteed one bid to Nationals. The remaining ten bids are parceled out to the regions of the next ten highest ranked teams according to the USA Ultimate algorithm. Teams then compete at Regionals for the amount of bids to Nationals that their region has been assigned.
#6 Vermont Ruckus are the sole strength-bid earners east of the Rocky Mountains. #21 Notre Dame Echo finished just 18 rankings points behind the cutoff, despite pushing their way to the final of the East Coast Invite during the last week of the regular season.
While most of the top teams will not have trouble advancing from their conference to regionals, there are some intriguing local matchups to keep an eye on including #4 UBC Thunderbirds, #5 Oregon Fugue, and #9 Washington Element in the Cascadia conference, and #8 Cal Poly SLO SLOmotion, #12 UC San Diego Dragon Coalition, and #18 UC Santa Barbara Burning Skirts in the SoCal conference.
Looking Ahead
The road to Nationals begins this weekend with all of the splendor of Opening Day. Every team that takes the field for their conference championship has a shot at winning the National title–they just need to keep winning. Each conference is allocated a certain number of bids to their respective Regional tournament, which is where teams will qualify for Nationals.
In alphabetical order, the Carolina, Cascadia, Colonial, Desert, Eastern Great Lakes, Eastern Metro East, Florida, Greater New England, Gulf Coast, Illinois, Lake Superior, Metro Boston, NorCal, Ohio, Ozarks, Pennsylvania, Rocky Mountain, SoCal, Southern Appalachian, Texas, Virginia, Western North Central, and Western NY conference championships are scheduled for this weekend while the Big Sky conference takes place the following weekend.
D-I Men’s
Havoc in New England
The regular season concluded last week as a frantic final weekend saw lots of changes in the rankings based on results at Easterns and Huck Finn. Now our focus shifts to the USA Ultimate series, consisting of conference championships which lead to regional championships which lead to the D-I College Championships (Nationals). Last week, USA Ultimate released their final bid allocations:
- Atlantic Coast – 1
- Great Lakes – 1
- Metro East – 1
- New England – 3
- North Central – 1
- Northwest – 5
- Ohio Valley – 1
- South Central – 3
- Southeast – 1
- Southwest – 3
As a reminder, each one of the ten regions is guaranteed one bid to Nationals. The remaining ten bids are parceled out to the regions of the next ten highest ranked teams according to the USA Ultimate algorithm. Teams then compete at regionals for the amount of bids to Nationals that their region has been assigned.
#23 Washington University Contra did just enough at Huck Finn to hold on to the third South Central bid, while #11 Brown Brownian Motion, #14 Tufts E-Men, #16 Northeastern Huskies, and #22 Vermont Chill will split two bids between them (with #3 UMass Zoodisc the heavy favorite to take one of the New England region’s three bids). Technically, Brown and Northeastern were the last two teams to earn strength bids while Tufts and Vermont were the first teams out. A mere three points separate Northeastern and Tufts; it’s a good thing they’re in the same region and can effectively play for the bid in a few weeks at Regionals.
While most of the top teams will not have trouble advancing from their conference to regionals, there are some intriguing local matchups to keep an eye on including #9 California Ursa Major and #12 UC Santa Cruz Slugs in the NorCal conference, #13 Georgia Jojah and #19 Georgia Tech Tribe at Southern Appalachian conference, and #19 Penn State Spank and Pittsburgh En Sabah Nur at the West Penn conference championship.
Looking Ahead
The road to Nationals begins this weekend. Every team that takes the field for their conference championship has a shot at winning the National title–they just need to keep winning! Each conference is allocated a certain number of bids to their respective Regional tournament, which is where teams will qualify for Nationals.
In alphabetical order, the Carolina, Colonial, Desert, East Penn, East Plains, Florida, Greater New England, Gulf Coast, Hudson Valley, Illinois, Lake Superior, Metro Boston, Metro NY, Michigan, NorCal, North Texas, Northwoods, Ohio, Ozarks, Rocky Mountain, SoCal, South Texas, Southern Appalachian, Virginia, West Penn, West Plains, and Western NY conference championships are scheduled for this weekend while the Big Sky and Cascadia conference championships take place the following weekend.
D-III Women’s
Nationals Just Around the Corner
The regular season concluded last week and we can now focus on the USA Ultimate series, consisting of conference championships which sometimes are and sometimes can lead to regional championships which lead to the D-III College Championships (Nationals). Last week, USA Ultimate released their final bid allocations:
- Atlantic Coast – 1
- Great Lakes – 1
- Metro East – 2
- New England – 2
- North Central – 2
- Northwest – 3
- Ohio Valley – 2
- South Central – 1
- Southeast – 1
- Southwest – 1
As a reminder, each one of the ten regions is guaranteed one bid to Nationals. The remaining six bids are parceled out to the regions of the next six highest ranked teams according to the USA Ultimate algorithm (with the caveat that the USA Ultimate guidelines do not allow any D-III region to receive more than four bids to the D-III College Championships). Teams then compete at regionals for the amount of bids to Nationals that their region has been assigned.
Regions with enough teams are divided into conferences similar to the D-I divisions. Regions with fewer teams form just one D-III Conference; that Conference event serves as the D-III Regional event.
Looking Ahead
This week teams in the Atlantic Coast, Great Lakes, North Central, Northwest, South Central, and Southeast will play for their places at Nationals. The North Central conference championship is shaking out to be most interesting. While the other regions have clear favorites, #1 Carleton Eclipse, #5 St Olaf Vortex, #11 Macalester Pursesnatchers, and #15 Michigan Tech Superior Ma’s are all in contention for the two North Central bids.
Teams in the following conferences will play for their place at Metro East, New England, or Ohio Valley Regionals: Eastern Metro East, Metro Boston, North New England, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South New England, and Western NY.
The Southwest conference championship is scheduled for April 26th, alongside the remaining three regional championships.
D-III Men’s
Newcomer Shakes Up the Rankings
The regular season concluded last week and we can now focus on the USA Ultimate series, consisting of conference championships which sometimes are and sometimes can lead to regional championships which lead to the D-III College Championships (Nationals). Last week, USA Ultimate released their final bid allocations:
- Atlantic Coast – 2
- Great Lakes – 2
- Metro East – 2
- New England – 2
- North Central – 1
- Northwest – 2
- Ohio Valley – 1
- South Central – 2
- Southeast – 1
- Southwest – 1
As a reminder, each one of the ten regions is guaranteed one bid to Nationals. The remaining six bids are parceled out to the regions of the next six highest ranked teams according to the USA Ultimate algorithm (with the caveat that the USA Ultimate guidelines do not allow any D-III region to receive more than four bids to the D-III College Championships). Teams then compete at Regionals for the amount of bids to Nationals that their region has been assigned.
Regions with enough teams are divided into conferences similar to the D-I divisions. Regions with fewer teams form just one D-III Conference; that Conference event serves as the D-III Regional event.
First year team #11 Asbury squeaked over the minimum games threshold during the last week of the regular season to earn an additional bid for the Great Lakes. Their inclusion comes at the expense of #15 St Olaf Bezerkers, the defending champion and last team out of this season’s rankings. St Olaf’s 3-4 weekend at Huck Finn dropped them four spots in the rankings while Asbury’s run to the final at Corny Classic gave them enough games played1 to jump to the seventh spot in the rankings.
Looking Ahead
This week teams in the Atlantic Coast and Southeast will play for their places at Nationals. #2 Elon Big Fat Bomb and #14 Richmond Spidermonkeys will be the favorites to advance out of the Atlantic Coast, and their likely matchup in the final should be a great game. The regional rivals have not played since 2023. Elon are looking to make Nationals for the first time since 2015, while Richmond have been a fixture of the Nationals bracket for nearly a decade at this point. The Southeast should prove interesting as well. #21 Berry Bucks and #25 Lipscomb Bisons will be in contention for the sole bid to Nationals. Ave Maria are the highest ranked team in the region, but they opted into the D-I route, so they’ll be playing to qualify for D-I regionals rather than D-III Nationals.
Teams in the following conferences will play for their place at Metro East, Great Lakes, South Central, New England, North Central, or Ohio Valley Regionals: East Penn, Eastern Great Lakes, Hudson Valley, Illinois, Lake Superior, Metro Boston, Metro NY, North New England, Northwoods, Ohio, Ozarks, Rocky Mountain, South New England, Texas, West Penn, West Plains, and Western NY. A few conferences have exciting matchups to point out: Eastern Great Lakes will likely see #1 Davenport Panthers and Asbury meet, perhaps in a preview of the regional final. North New England has #3 Middlebury Pranksters, #16 Bates, Orange Whip, and #18 Bowdoin Clown all in action. The Northwoods conference is a preview of North Central Regionals. #8 Carleton CHOP, St Olaf, and Macalester Flat Earth will all be favored to advance to regionals, but only one of them can make it farther than that.
The Southwest and Northwest conference championships are scheduled for next weekend.
teams need to play at least 10 games to be ranked ↩
