Posted April 26, 2012 at 11:27 am by Joaquin Nagle | Comments (19)
These rankings and the 2012 Skyd College Tour are presented by Spin Ultimate
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch Changes… Conferences Upsets
Tons of movement in this edition of the power rankings, but only one exit. North Carolina, in losing to South Carolina was ousted from the top 20. All of the Michigan State fans can relax as we have finally been inserted in as the second team from the Great Lakes. Whitman is still hanging in our top 20 as we gave the snub to Texas A&M. A&M should not go unnoticed regardless, with their win over Texas in conferences. Repeat that performance and we’ll see them in the top 20 next time. Stanford moves up with their win over Cal while the middle ends up being similar.
Winter is finally here…
The North Central has 5 teams in our top 11, and for good reason. Iowa has solid wins over Luther, and is vying for that number one seed this weekend. I doubt things will go completely to seed, so we should see some movement just based on this tournament alone. Carleton has moved up after their win over Minnesota, recovering over a sub par performance at Centex. Iowa is high in the USAU rankings, but I’m not convinced that they are top 5 unless they can get 1st or 2nd this weekend. Forecast for NC Regionals is also for snow on Saturday. I think Wisconsin has already started building the Wall to keep all of those IHUC wildlings out.
Florida vs. UCF
A loss to a top 20 team definitely warrants some movement, but we’re not going to give the death sentence to Central Florida. It was a universe point loss with apparently some controversial moments. Regardless, the South East regional is going to be a great tournament. Three teams in our top 20 will battle over two spots while Georgia sits just outside hoping for an opportunity. Florida State is also going to be hungry, and this is your shout out. Next weekend you have to take care of business in the finals when it counts.
We’ll see where things round out by Regionals. We know a couple of things, two of those teams in our top 20 are not making nationals. Also to note, we will only be including people who qualify for nationals in our next top 20. So UConn, here is your chance.
Posted March 28, 2012 at 12:19 am by Joaquin Nagle | Comments (23)
Another few weeks have gone by, so again we have a set of rankings and a few more talking points. Before we get to who is in what tier, let’s take a moment to check in with what these tiers mean at this point in the season.
Tier 1: These team have consistently displayed excellence throughout the season.
Tier 2: These teams have been a bit up and down with their results, but have shown the ability to challenge and beat the Tier 1 teams.
Tier 3: There is a wide swath of teams here; some of these teams have challenged the teams in Tier 1, some are challenged by the teams below them, but all have been inconsistent throughout the season. There are at least 5 more teams out there that have a solid argument to be Tier 3.
Now on to the rankings . . .
Tier 1: Oregon, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin
Tier 2: Carleton, Minnesota, Texas, Tufts, Central Florida
Tier 3: California, Cal Poly SLO, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Luther, Ohio, Stanford, UNC, Washington, Whitman
Talking points after Centex and Easterns:
- Oregon 2012 vs Oregon 2010: Expectedly, people have been comparing the two recent Oregon teams that have had great regular seasons. Bryan Jones mentioned a difference in youth and experience in his Centex recap, which is a great observation. Still, despite that youth, the current Ego team has a lot of relevant success in terms of Nationals. In 2010, Ego was coming off of consecutive years where they missed nationals, where as this Oregon team is coming off of consecutive years where they improved their finish at nationals. Additionally, the Oregon team of 2010 didn’t play a close game between their Stanford Invite dgp win over Cut and game 1 of nationals. In their tournaments between Stanford Invite and The College Championships the most any team scored on them was 9 (Whitman at NW regionals). I think the combination of recent nationals experience and close game experience during the regular season will help the 2012 edition of Ego not fall into the same traps as the 2010 version.
- Up and down Cut: As I noted on RSD, Cut doesn’t have a long history of regular season success, it’s actually more a recent thing. The progress they made as a team between Warm Up and Stanford Invite seems indicative of the old Cut teams that build throughout the season. Was Centex a step back? Yes. But we should remember that Cut is good at keeping the big picture in mind, and has a history of out performing their regular season come series time.
- College and the Side-stack (L stack?): Last year there was a lot of discussion about the vertical stack coming back into vogue. A large part of that was college teams looking at club ultimate for what works. Another part was the continuing spread of coaching in college ultimate. It seems that this year college teams are continuing to pull from club ultimate and are adapting the side stack pull play. Still, the side stack play I’m seeing from most college teams differs from the play that has been so successful for so long. Teams are having three handlers back with 4 players in the side stack. Having a far side handler helps teams with possession because the center handler has more options, but it hurts their spacing because of the potential poach. The intended 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 play often goes 1 – 2 – poached handler – 3 (for fewer yards than intended, this will also not work if the defense flexes off the center handler to further clog the space created by the side stack) – 4 (if the timing hasn’t been thrown off).
Feature photo by Kyle McBard (UltiPhotos.com)
Posted March 2, 2012 at 2:39 pm by Jonathan Neeley | Comments (2)
What’s up, world? It’s been a while since I’ve written around these parts, so it’s good to be back to deliver a new set of Inside Breaks rankings. With Stanford Invite happening this weekend, there’s bound to be a lot here that will look suspect come Monday, but if it’s all the same to you guys, Joaq and I thought some chatter was just what this Friday afternoon needed. You’ll find the rankings and a few of my thoughts below. Enjoy, and as always, let us know what you think.
Again, lets revisit some of our guidelines from last year:
- A team cannot be hurt or helped by not having played.
- A team doesn’t have to move completely out of the rankings because they lost to good competition.
With those rules in mind, lets look at the teams from the last rankings
- Can’t Move: Carlerton, Pitt, Wisconsin, Oregon, Central Florida, Minnesota, Tufts, Whitman, Florida, Ohio, UNC, UNCW
- Have to move down: Colorado, Luther
- Should be included: Dartmouth
- Solid argument to move down: Cal, Texas, SLO
- Solid argument to move up: Washington, Iowa
- Solid argument for inclusion: Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, lots of other teams
In putting these together, Joaq had this to say: “This year I think there is a larger gap between tier 1 and the field than there was last year, and as such, I’m inclined to keep Tier 2 relatively small this also means tier 3 gets messy in terms of range of quality. Here is what I have as of now”:
Tier 1: Carleton, Pitt, Oregon, Wisconsin
Tier 2: Central Florida, Minnesota, Tufts, Whitman
Tier 3: California, Colorado, Dartmouth, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Luther, Ohio, UCSB, UNC, UNCW, Washington
Moving beyond rankings, I’ve got a little bit on my mind going into Stanford Invite:
- Pittsburgh is the “it” team on everyone’s radar right now, which is understandable given how good they looked on the Warm Up tape. They move the disc quickly and with ease, they defend well, and their offense really understands how to set up cuts and use space on the field. They’ve been searching for a way to make the next step for a few years, and another season of experience for their vets along with the addition of Trent Dillon certainly helps. Pitt looks like a team that has made strides. The questions now is “how great?” and “are they sustainable?”
- Speaking of the Warm Up tape, I was pretty unimpressed with Central Florida. Aside from their tall guys that are bound to get backed and have easier unders, they had a really hard time getting open on the force side, and once Pitt tightened up their marks, they failed to respond by hitting swings early to get the disc to the break side. That said, they beat Carleton and Wisconsin en route to the final of a pretty competitive tournament, where [even though Pitt was firmly in control], they fought ’til pretty much the end. I’m willing to believe that the final was their worst game, and I’m looking forward to seeing them with fresh legs and another month of practice under their belts at Easterns.
- And speaking of CUT and Wisconsin… when I watched them play, they looked less well-oiled than other teams, but not worse. Sort of like teams that know what they should be doing, but haven’t been outside to run through the motions yet. Go figure. Right now, if I had to bet on whether this year’s champ will be either Carleton/Wisconsin or the field, I’d take the former. These two teams have so much experience, so much institutional knowledge about both how to play and how to win, and so much poise. Warm Up was in February, and they know it.
- Looking at the rest of the Stanford field, Cal and Minnesota stand out to be as interesting because a lot of people lauded their talent last year only to see them miss Nationals. Maybe they’ll be the kinds of cases where they really are as good as everyone thinks, just a year later.
- Finally, a quick thought about USA Ultimate’s first set of rankings, which came out this week. Because there haven’t been many tournaments and East and West haven’t played each other much, they look a bit premature. Because everyone starts off on equal ground in January, it’s hard for a formula to rank accurately when teams haven’t played many games; team A and team B could each be 7-1, but the computer would have no way of knowing that A played at Warm Up while B was at Glow-in-the-Dark-Horse. Right now, Tufts is good, but probably not #1 good. Same with Wilmington and Ohio. Also, Oregon and Texas stick out as teams that are really low just because they haven’t played much yet. As usual, the rankings will be much more accurate in a few weeks.
Posted February 16, 2012 at 11:10 pm by Joaquin Nagle | Comments (22)
I know we’ve been pretty quiet over here at IB, but that doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention. Also, I’m now the head coach at UCSC while Neeley is more involved with his club team, so a lot of our ultimate thinking is not making onto the internet. We’re still trying to use this space for our thoughts on the game, so I thought I’d throw out a ranking set and some observations about the state of college ultimate. As it’s still early, we’re ranking teams based on tiers instead of a Top 20. Lets revisit the definitions of the tiers from last year
“Rather than pretend that we know the 11th best team from the 12th, we sorted our loose projection of the Top 20* into three tiers.
Tier One: These are the teams that we know are good. It would be surprising not to see them in the Quarterfinals, and they are high on the list of championship contenders.
Tier Two: Maybe they are a traditional power that is rebuilding. Maybe they’re on the rise. Either way, these teams are those that don’t quite stick out as dominant, but very well could be by May.
Tier Three: Those in tier three either barely missed in [2011] or are now missing most of the players that made it happen. Look for them to give opponents trouble throughout the year, and watch out if they get hot en route to Boulder.
Maybe it’s a cop-out. After all, people like lists. But really, we see it as a start. As the season progresses, we’ll know more about where teams around the country stand. Until then, take a look.”
With those rules in mind, here are our first set of rankings!
Tier 1:
Carleton, Colorado, Pitt, Wisconsin, Oregon
Tier 2:
California, Central Florida, Luther, Minnesota, Tufts, Whitman
Tier 3:
Cal-Poly SLO, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, UCSB, UNC, UNCW, Washington
Explanations/Reflections:
Tier 1 is full of teams returning lots of talent after making the quarterfinals or better last year. Nationals experience counts for a lot, and the extra 3 weeks of practicing and playing at your peak between regionals and nationals counts for even more. I expect these squads to ride their collective experience to success during the regular season and into the series.
Tier 2 is full of ‘Our Year’ type teams. Most of these teams have nationals experience within the last two seasons, and they all are returning lots of talent from last season. While there are plenty of ‘Our Year’ teams around the nation, it’s the top level experience that separates these squads (for Central Florida it’s the top quality results).
Tier 3 is a big mixup of different types of teams. There are some of those ‘Our Year’ squads but without the experience, some former powerhouses that are down from years past, and two teams I want to mention specifically, UNCW and Washington. These teams were both overlooked in the fall, and their quality was downplayed before recent tournament results. What these two teams have in common aside from solid showings at early season tournaments is not only quality coaching, but continuity in their coaching staff. I think that we as fans/commentators play up rosters full of returning players (as well we should) but underestimate the importance of continuity in coaching.
Those are my thoughts as of now, what do you all think?
P.S. I know there are 21 teams, who should get left out?
