Here's what we expect to see!
May 6, 2026 by Charlie Eisenhood in Analysis
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After the excitement of Regionals, we now have the full field of Nationals teams. It’s time to start thinking about what the seeding and pools might look like for the College Championships.
The post-Regionals rankings will be heavily leaned upon, and the order of finish at Regionals “will be strongly considered in determining seeding for Nationals, but will not be binding.” Please note that we do our best to follow USA Ultimate’s additional guidelines (and precedent) for seeding: head-to-head wins matter at the margin and historic success is considered.
Let’s kick things off right away with the pools generated by my predicted seeding.
Men’s Division
| Pool A | Pool B | Pool C | Pool D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oregon (1) | Colorado (2) | Carleton (3) | UNC (4) |
| UC Santa Cruz (8) | Oregon State (7) | Cal Poly SLO (6) | UMass (5) |
| Texas (12) | Brown (11) | Penn State (10) | Pittsburgh (9) |
| Georgia Tech (13) | Washington (14) | Michigan (15) | Western Washington (16) |
| Utah (17) | Maryland (18) | McGill (19) | Yale (20) |
1. Oregon — Well, let’s get started talking about the top 3. Oregon, Colorado, and Carleton are the top-ranked teams, in that order. Colorado is 0-1 vs. Oregon and 2-0 vs. Carleton. Easy enough to just keep them in this order, then, yes? Probably. But it’s complicated. Colorado was the best team this regular season and probably deserves the #1 seed after winning both Smoky Mountain and Easterns. They lost just once, admittedly in a blowout at the hands of Oregon (on a very narrow field in bad conditions). But Carleton beat Oregon twice and has only lost to Colorado. At the end of the day, I think the “right” outcome is Colorado/Carleton/Oregon. But I think USAU is not likely to put a team (Oregon) ranked 100 points higher than another (Carleton) lower in the seeding. So I think they go straight algo.
2. Colorado — 0-1 vs. Oregon. 2-0 vs. Carleton. #2 ranked.
3. Carleton — 0-2 vs. Colorado. #3 ranked.
4. UNC — #4 ranked. No relevant H2H.
5. UMass — #5 in the rankings. No relevant H2H. They were really boosted by a great Regionals showing.
6. Cal Poly SLO — #6 ranked. Only a couple points higher than Oregon State, but no reason to make a swap.
7. Oregon State — #7 ranked. Split games with UC Santa Cruz, though the OSU win was weather-shortened. Moving them to the 8 seed would create an Oregon/OSU rematch, so keep it as is.
8. UC Santa Cruz — Next in the rankings. Much higher than Pitt.
9. Pittsburgh — Next in the rankings. Brown beat them in their lone meeting, but again a swap creates a regional rematch (plus Pitt is 30 points higher rated). So don’t change anything.
10. Penn State — Our first deviation from the rankings! Penn State went 2-0 vs. Brown, and they’re only about 25 points apart.
11. Brown — Clearly next by rankings.
12. Texas — Rankings. Split with GT.
13. Georgia Tech — Rankings.
14. Washington — Rankings.
15. Michigan — No reason to deviate from rankings.
16. Western Washington — Western finished ahead of Utah and beat them at Regionals. WWU’s lower ranking seems driven more by injuries at Easterns. While USAU won’t explicitly look at that, the Regionals finish plus the H2H win makes for an obvious swap.
17. Utah — Rankings, finished below WWU at Regionals, lost H2H to WWU.
18. Maryland — Rankings.
19. McGill — Rankings.
20. Yale — Rankings.
Women’s Division
| Pool A | Pool B | Pool C | Pool D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carleton (1) | UBC (2) | UC Santa Cruz (3) | Stanford (4) |
| Colorado (8) | UNC (7) | Tufts (6) | Washington (5) |
| UCLA (12) | Western Washington (11) | Oregon (10) | Pennsylvania (9) |
| Victoria (13) | Cal Poly SLO (14) | UC San Diego (15) | Vermont (16) |
| Georgia (17) | Michigan (18) | Toronto (19) | Vermont B (20) |
1. Carleton — #1 ranked team in the division, by some margin. Undefeated!
2. UBC — Despite some losses with Mika Kurahashi out of the lineup, UBC will still be the #2 seed. They split games with UC Santa Cruz.
3. UC Santa Cruz — Clear from the rankings. Defeated Stanford to win Southwest Regionals.
4. Stanford — Clear, #4 ranked.
5. Washington — #5 ranked. Did not play Tufts.
6. Tufts — #6 ranked. Split games with UNC. No reason to downgrade them.
7. UNC — #7 ranked, significantly higher rated than Colorado.
8. Colorado — Rankings.
9. Penn — Rankings.
10. Oregon — Beat WWU at Regionals and finished higher ranked as well.
11. Western Washington — Rankings.
12. UCLA — 3rd in Southwest.
13. Victoria — First interesting decision. UVic went 2-1 vs. SLO and 1-0 vs. UCSD. Moving a team up two slots does feel like it’s a little bit aggressive and unlike USAU, but this move smooths out the distribution of SW and NW teams to minimize rematches, and it’s reasonably justified by the H2H results. Moving UVic to Pool A means there are the minimum amount of NW and SW rematches in pool play (one from each region).
14. Cal Poly SLO — Cal Poly finished ahead of UC San Diego and won the three most recent matchups. But they’re ranked behind them and 40 points lower. I still think the recent H2H results (overall, 3-3 on the season) and the Regional finish will get them the bump here.
15. UC San Diego — Rankings. Definitely possible they go at #14 with SLO at #13 and UVic here at #15.
16. Vermont — Rankings.
17. Georgia — Rankings.
18. Michigan — Rankings
19. Toronto — Rankings
20. Vermont B — The people’s champ!! Now, this does put Vermont and Vermont B in the same pool. But I don’t really see a way out of this one. Vermont is rated way below UCSD and way above Georgia. And Vermont B simply has to be the last seed by rating. And who knows? MAYBE THEY’LL DO IT AGAIN.
