USAU Ranking Approximation: Bid Picture Emerging, Bad News For Men’s SE

Click here to see last week’s approximated rankings.

Ultiworld’s Cody Mills has put together a statistical tool to approximate the USA Ultimate rankings by using publicly available score data and applying the algorithm that USA Ultimate uses to run their numbers. While the results below are unofficial and could include some scores which are liable to be altered or removed from the official rankings, they are a good representation of the what the current rankings would look like.

Throughout the remainder of the college season, we will be running this USAU ranking approximation and, later, applying different algorithms and/or ranking methods to test possible alternatives to the existing algorithm.

For more information about the USA Ultimate algorithm, ranking system, and some of its perceived flaws, see this FAQ from last year.

Men’s Division

The rankings below include only teams with at least five sanctioned games. This is the same cutoff that USAU will use on their initial rankings this week.

RANKING TEAM REGION RATING #1 Wisconsin NC 2084.15 #2 Massachusetts NE 1999.47 #3 Stanford SW 1984.74 #4 North Carolina-Wilmington AC 1960.69 #5 Oregon NW 1960.48 #6 Florida SE 1952.05 #7 Minnesota NC 1912.20 #8 Pittsburgh OV 1901.62 #9 Washington NW 1885.84 #10 Victoria NW 1841.31 #11 British Columbia NW 1834.80 #12 Harvard NE 1812.31 #13 Colorado SC 1794.47 #14 Michigan GL 1789.70 #15 North Carolina AC 1760.12 #16 Texas Christian SC 1756.76 #17 Carleton College NC 1724.07 #18 Arkansas SC 1695.71 #19 Missouri SC 1688.29 #20 Cal Poly-SLO SW 1672.87 #21 California-Santa Barbara SW 1667.97 #22 Texas A&M SC 1656.29 #23 Virginia Tech AC 1650.38 #24 Cincinnati OV 1642.57 #25 Purdue GL 1637.50 #26 Georgia SE 1633.10 #27 Texas SC 1621.45 #28 Brigham Young NW 1618.58 #29 Carnegie Mellon OV 1614.95 #30 LSU SE 1613.50 #31 Ohio State OV 1613.27 #32 Auburn SE 1610.87 #33 Oregon State NW 1603.76 #34 Tulane SE 1580.67 #35 Colorado State SC 1578.99 #36 Florida State SE 1573.03 #37 Western Washington NW 1556.35 #38 Central Florida SE 1550.50 #39 Georgia Tech SE 1547.17 #40 Connecticut ME 1541.21 #41 Brown NE 1525.62 #42 James Madison AC 1523.66 #43 California-San Diego SW 1507.70 #44 Georgetown AC 1504.02 #45 John Brown SC 1502.99 #46 North Carolina State AC 1500.59 #47 Maryland AC 1497.69 #48 Whitman NW 1496.36 #49 Virginia Commonwealth AC 1476.26 #50 George Washington AC 1474.08

Implied Bid Allocation

Atlantic Coast: 2 bids

Great Lakes: 1 bid

Metro East: 1 bid

New England: 2 bids

North Central: 3 bids

Northwest: 4 bids

Ohio Valley: 1 bid

South Central: 4 bids (+1)

Southeast: 1 bid (-1)

Southwest: 1 bid

Discussion

Potentially devastating news for the Southeast as a rough Sunday at Tally Classic from Georgia pulls them into the 20s and leaves the region staring at a strong possibility of earning just a single bid. Despite an excellent weekend from #32 Auburn, earlier losses at Warm Up may never make it possible for the team to climb out of the hole.

The Southwest is also facing another painful one bid reality, despite having the first two teams outside the cutoff (#20 Cal Poly SLO and #21 UC Santa Barbara).

Also take note of the flush South Central, who pick up another bid as Missouri went undefeated at the Midwest Throwdown and entered the rankings just inside the cutoff at #19. Note that perennial powerhouse Texas (#27) is not one of the bid earners.

There remains a good chance for the Southwest to pick up an extra bid (or two!) this year as it seems very plausible that one or more of #16 TCU, #18 Arkansas, or #19 Missouri will fall out of the rankings. Note that Arkansas and TCU each have ten games in the books already; they could just sit tight and not attend further tournaments.

We now await the first official rankings from USA Ultimate. There were some consolation scores unreported last night at the time we ran these rankings, which could also create some small shifts.

Women’s Division

The rankings below include only teams with at least five sanctioned games. This is the same cutoff that USAU will use on their initial rankings next week.

RANKING TEAM REGION RATING #1 Central Florida SE 2481.68 #2 Whitman NW 2458.53 #3 British Columbia NW 2385.26 #4 Stanford SW 2337.40 #5 Oregon NW 2313.36 #6 Washington NW 2162.11 #7 Minnesota NC 2118.47 #8 Pittsburgh OV 2104.43 #9 UCLA SW 2104.31 #10 Michigan GL 2019.99 #11 Colorado SC 2012.44 #12 Texas SC 2005.20 #13 California SW 1988.25 #14 Virginia AC 1961.19 #15 Colorado College SC 1916.52 #16 Ohio State OV 1911.57 #17 California-San Diego SW 1907.92 #18 Wisconsin NC 1900.72 #19 Notre Dame GL 1885.17 #20 California-Davis SW 1873.45 #21 Western Washington NW 1872.96 #22 Southern California SW 1867.21 #23 Kansas SC 1836.67 #24 Tufts NE 1825.42 #25 Vermont NE 1811.51 #26 Northeastern NE 1804.87 #27 North Carolina AC 1804.47 #28 Maryland AC 1791.52 #29 Penn State OV 1778.89 #30 North Carolina-Wilmington AC 1683.27 #31 Florida State SE 1681.55 #32 Clemson AC 1631.01 #33 Delaware AC 1610.02 #34 Texas State SC 1599.65 #35 Liberty AC 1599.20 #36 Georgia Tech SE 1594.90 #37 Dartmouth NE 1568.84 #38 Iowa State NC 1555.69 #39 Carleton College NC 1544.95 #40 Victoria NW 1543.91 #41 Texas A&M SC 1533.80 #42 Florida SE 1528.65 #43 Colorado State SC 1523.55 #44 Truman State SC 1458.16 #45 Northwestern GL 1435.55 #46 James Madison AC 1425.19 #47 Case Western Reserve OV 1408.73 #48 Cal Poly-SLO SW 1406.51 #49 MIT NE 1391.49 #50 Denver SC 1383.75

Implied Bid Allocation

Atlantic Coast: 1 bid

Great Lakes: 1 bid (-1)

Metro East: 1 bid

New England: 1 bid

North Central: 2 bids

Northwest: 4 bids

Ohio Valley: 2 bids

South Central: 3 bids (+1)

Southeast: 1 bids

Southwest: 4 bids

Discussion

Little changed in the bid allocation this week. Texas moved into the bid range thanks to a good weekend at Stanford Invite, bringing the expected third bid to the South Central. That came at the expense of the Great Lakes, as Notre Dame fell to #19, just outside the cutoff.

Central Florida remains the #1 team in the country, though their ranking drops about 300 points now that they have been properly compared to other top teams out west.

That, along with Ohio State’s drop of about 250 points, accounts for the well-connected east coast teams (e.g., Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Michigan, Virginia, Notre Dame, etc.) dropping almost 200 points each.

Now we await Centex and Northwest Challenge, as a few teams — like the Northwest’s Western Washington — look to play into bid range.