2013 D-1 Women’s Championships Seeding Prediction

Let’s start the discussion about women’s seedings for the D-1 College Championships! Due to the lack of connectivity between the top Northwest and North Central teams, there are a few possible rankings between the regions, but due to UBC and Washington faltering at Conferences and Regionals (not to mention missing Mira Donaldson/Catherine Hui for Team Canada and Sarah Davis to injury respectively), I see them falling below teams like Iowa, Ohio State, and Tufts.

1. Oregon (NW #1)
2. Carleton (NC #1)
3. Iowa State (NC #2)
4. Tufts (NE #1)
5. Iowa (NC #3)
6. Ohio State (OV #1)
7. British Columbia (NW #2)
8. Washington (NW #3)
9. Virginia (AC #1)
10. Stanford (SW #1)
11. California Santa-Barbara (SW #2)
12. Wisconsin (NC #4)
13. Minnesota (NC #5)
14. Georgia (SE #1)
15. Central Florida (SE #2)
16. Texas (SC #1)
17. Northeastern (NE #2)
18. Northwestern (GL #1)
19. Whitman (NW #4)
20. Ottawa (ME #1)

Yielding pools:

Pool A:

1. Oregon
2. Washington
3. Wisconsin
4. Minnesota
5. Northeastern

Pool B:

1. Carleton
2. British Columbia
3. California-Santa Barbara
4. Georgia
5. Northwestern

Pool C:

1. Iowa State
2. Ohio State
3. Stanford
4. Central Florida
5. Whitman

Pool D:

1. Tufts
2. Iowa
3. Virginia
4. Texas
5. Ottawa

Seeding Matrix

There are a few places where arguments could be made:

• Wisconsin could be much higher, depending on how you weight Centex vs Stanford Invite performance (I saw them play multiple games at both tournaments). Another draft of seeding had them right up with UBC around the 7/8 spot, although I’m more inclined to take the more recent performance and their 4th place finish at North Central Regionals as an indication that Centex is more reflective of true strength.
• I removed Stanford and Santa Barbara’s results from Santa Barbara Invite from consideration due to U23 Worlds tryouts. Rankings also don’t take into account Stanford’s dominating performances at Conferences and Regionals, which would undoubtedly put them higher in the rankings were they re-run, plus they have recent dominating head-to-head wins over Minnesota and Wisconsin from Centex.
• British Columbia will almost certainly finish higher than 7th, but they’ve dropped some important games since Pres Day and been without star players for several tournaments. I don’t really see seeding them above #7, especially with how close their game against Whitman was and their two losses to UW.
• I significantly weighted Centex results over Queen City results when teams had conflicts there. Wins later on at a higher caliber tournament mean more.

So let’s hear it! What do you think?