Buzzer Beater: Let the Playoffs Begin! [UFA Week 13, 2025]

The regular season ends and the playoffs begin

July 21, 2025 by Alex Rubin in Rankings, Recap

Hi everyone, welcome back to my weekly Buzzer Beater column. Here I will focus on one major storyline each week. The column will also share some news and notes beyond that big story and will be the place to share our most up-to-date power rankings. If you have questions about the UFA, you can also write in to [email protected] to fill up the mailbag.

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Regular Season Recap

The regular season has come to a close and before we focus on the playoffs, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the key storylines from the start of the season and see how they developed.

Rush Reboot

Preseason: It will no doubt be a challenge to integrate so many new pieces all at once, both to the team and to the UFA ruleset, but the Rush announced these signings in January so they’ve had plenty of time to come up with a development plan. With one of the easier schedules in the division (three games against Montreal, and a cross-division game against Pittsburgh), the Rush will almost certainly have a say in who represents the East at Championship Weekend.

Postseason: Well, the Rush did not have much of a say in anything as they ended the season 3-9 sitting in last place in the East Division. It was in fact difficult to integrate so many new pieces. Availability was not a huge issue (Tom Blasman appeared in 12 games for example), nor was skill (Blasman is fourth in the league in assists), but Toronto just never put all of their pieces together. Not only were the Rush clearly a tier below New York, DC, and Boston as predicted, but they were also clearly worse than Philadelphia and Montreal.

Re-Alignment

Preseason: The imbalanced schedules could impact playoff seeding, but the teams with tougher schedules will be better battle-tested ahead of a competitive playoff series. With many teams scheduled for their first matchups against new opponents this summer, scouting and game planning will be more of a guessing game than seasons past.

Postseason: The imbalance in schedules almost certainly impacted the South Division, as San Diego benefited from wins over LA and Las Vegas to bolster their win over Carolina earlier in the season into a playoff appearance. Carolina played top seeded Atlanta more often than anyone else and ended up with three losses just in that series alone. It’s not too hard to imagine what might have happened had Carolina played the Aviators or Bighorns, but at the end of the day the Growlers did just win the games on their schedule, and they beat Carolina head to head. I’m not arguing that they don’t deserve their playoff spot at all–but it’s hard not to see the schedule impacting the outcome here.

Chicago’s Offseason Additions

Preseason: World-class talent like Daan De Marrée and Nate Goff change the shape of the field when they step on the line. Paul Arters and Pawel Janas open up more options on offense while William Wettengel, Simon Dastrup, Tim Schoch, Jace Bruner, and Dylan Nice should add defensive punch. It’s nearly too much talent to have, but Chicago does not want to take any chances that they’ll miss Championship Weekend.

Postseason: Daan De Marrée is looking like the best player in the world, and the Chicago Union are looking like the best team in the league. Assuming they can withstand the immense pressure that comes with bringing the best roster into the playoffs, the U should be picking up the three more Ws they’ll need to bring a trophy back to Evanston.

New Frisbee

Preseason: The jury is still out on its effectiveness. No matter what, it’s encouraging that an entity is willing to experiment and try new things as our young sport continues to grow. I’m grateful for the players willing to go along with the experiment and share their experiences with the new disc as we all seek to understand how to better optimize the playing and viewing experience of ultimate.

Postseason: This really has not been much of a story after the first week or so. Once the players got used to playing with the Frisbee, the complaints about its differences went away. I’m still excited to see what the league does moving forward now that they have more control over the disc’s production. Can we get RPMs? Specific throwing angle data? Information about how marks affect throws? I’m sure there are things being cooked up in the lab that I can’t even think of right now, and I’m really excited to see where the league takes this.

 

News and Notes

• Carolina beat Austin 24-19, keeping Austin from claiming the top seed in the South Division. The Flyers also took down Houston 25-21 to close out their season with impressive road wins. Allan Laviolette added seven assists to his league leading total just in the Houston game while Terrance Mitchell added seven goals at the same time.
• Nanda Min-Fink led the way with four assists and three goals as Colorado surged past Seattle 24-15 in a calm playoff tuneup. Seattle was missing a few players, including star handler Garrett Martin, who were left in Washington when their plane turned around mid-flight and no other transportation to Colorado could be arranged on such short notice.
• Salt Lake scored five first-quarter breaks as they took down the Minnesota Wind Chill. Minnesota chipped away and came as close as a single goal before Salt Lake pulled away and claimed a 22-18 win–their eleventh straight this season.
• Quentin Bonnaud led Montreal with three assists, five goals, and 446 total yards as the Royal ended their season with a 23-16 win over the Toronto Rush.
• Philadelphia and DC played each other. Team A had fewer than ten turnovers and an 82% hold rate. Team B had 19 turnovers and just a 52% hold rate. Philadelphia was Team A and they took home a season-ending 24-15 win against a Breeze team that played their top players and was not resting stars. Sean Mott capped a great season with eight assists, while Scott Heyman had three assists, five goals, and 680 total yards.
• The New York Empire are entering the playoffs on a hot streak as they took down the Boston Glory 22-21. New York was down for most of the game, but scored four straight breaks to open the fourth quarter and really take charge of the contest. We could see these teams play each other again in the playoffs a few weeks from now.
• Oakland will ride into the playoffs with a solid 17-14 win over the San Diego Growlers.
• Indianapolis closed their season with a 25-18 win over Pittsburgh. Jason Kempe led a strong defensive effort with seven blocks.
• Chicago proved why they’re considered the best team in the league with a comprehensive 39-14 win over Detroit. Daan De Marrée put the finishing touches on an MVP-worthy season with a video game-like 4A/7G/3D/0T stat line along with 719 total yards. Jacob Felton did have nine assists and 755 throwing yards in the loss.
• Five more goals and assists each from De Marrée led Chicago to a 24-18 win over Madison to close out an undefeated season.
• It was a weekend to forget for Detroit as they also fell 35-11 to Minnesota.
• Seattle closed out their season with a 26-17 win over Oregon. Marc Muñoz tallied nine assists to lead the ‘Scades.
• Los Angeles pulled away in the second half to take down Las Vegas 18-15. That leaves Vegas as the only winless team this season.

 

UFA Power Rankings Week 13

• Salt Lake shoots up the rankings after their big win over Minnesota
• Boston slides a bit to fifth after their second-straight loss to close out the season