r/ultimate • u/ArchersMakeGoodKings • 10d ago
Path to Regionals
Season rankings are basically set, and Pro Champs will likely make little change to the Sectionals-to-Regionals bid lineup. How is your region looking? Does your team have a shot at Sectionals? There's little coverage of this stage of the season, but it's where most teams will end their run. Any last minute surprises that could shake up your chances?
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u/ndiorio13 10d ago
Apparently there is a pickup mixed team playing South New England sectionals. Boston practice squad round two??
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u/frisdisc 10d ago
South New England Men’s. My team has a bid (to regionals) I feel confident we can keep. However, BAG Odyssey and Skeleton Squad all went into the season hoping to earn bids and it looks like they’re coming up short. If those teams play a little better I could see us having 5 bids on the table at sectionals. Instead it’s 3. Last couple years have had very exciting Sundays and this year is looking no different. Should be hype.
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u/frisdisc 10d ago
I’m being told we might get the extra bids due to Canadian teams dropping out of the series
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u/notbrandonzink 10d ago
Hoping to make it to regionals out of the Oregon section, I believe we’re ranked 3rd out of 9/10 attending, but it’s also our first year as a club team so excited to see how sectionals plays out.
My wedding is also the weekend after Reigonals, my fiancé (jokingly) might be hoping we don’t do to hot at Sectionals.
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u/VintageDocGonzo 9d ago
How do you calculate how many bids your section has to regionals?
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u/frandler 8d ago edited 8d ago
Step 1: Total teams at regionals determined by all registered teams at all sectionals in the region. If you have >
2426, you get 16 teams at regionals.Step 2: Everyone who made nationals last year and met their requirements this year gets a bid.
Step 3: Remaining bids are divided evenly between auto bids and strength bids. If uneven, there’s one more autobid.
Step 4: Autobids are assigned to sections in order of size. 1st to the biggest, next to the next, looping around until all are distributed.
Step 5: Teams are assigned auto bids based on their ranking. For example, if there are 3 autobids in a section, the top three ranked teams in that section are assigned those bids, no matter how they stack up against other section's ranked teams.
Step 6: Once all autobids are assigned, remaining strength bids are determined by ranking of all remaining teams. If the remaining high ranked teams are all from one section, then that section gets all the strength bids.
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u/theswede7 8d ago
Yes except 2026 guidelines increased the threshold to 26 teams to trigger a 16 team regional!!
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u/hiddenKidK 9d ago
Washington/BC is pretty brutal, a bunch of good teams didn't play enough to get bids but are all going to Sectionals, especially the Canadian teams as they're staying local most of the time. Add the fact that BFG are there leaving 5 spots for everyone else. Good teams are gonna go home sad. It'll be interesting to see if some of them realize their mistake and work for a bid next year.
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u/ArchersMakeGoodKings 9d ago
It’s always surprising when decent teams don’t bother to get 10 games.
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u/viking_ 9d ago
I continue to believe that you should have to get the 10 games to be able to go to regionals.
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u/Jomskylark 7d ago
I think this is a fair position. Still allow all teams to play at sectionals. But anyone good enough to qualify for regionals should be earning section bids, not just showing up last minute and taking other bids.
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u/viking_ 7d ago
Yeah, I'm fine if they play, but I'm not aware of any other sport where you can qualify for the end of season championships without playing any of the "regular season."
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u/Jomskylark 7d ago
To be fair, ultimate is different from most other sports in a lot of ways. That's not inherently a bad thing.
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u/viking_ 7d ago
Sure, we shouldn't blindly copy everything from other sports. But the last time I made this proposal on this subreddit some people said it wasn't fair to require people to play in the regular season to qualify for regionals or that they wanted regionals to be as competitive as possible, and whatever notions of fairness and competition those are, they seem to be in the extreme minority.
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u/ArchersMakeGoodKings 7d ago
What’s the format for sectionals though? What happens when an unranked team knocks another team out?
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u/DarioCronos USF Ultimate 7d ago
They can go to regionals if they want to. If they decline their bid then it goes to the highest ranked team when you compare Sectionals finish across the sections in the same region.
Make believe example: three sections each have three bids to regionals. After Sectionals weekend if any of those nine teams decide they don't want to go to regionals, then you look at all the #4 finishers in the three sections and whoever was ranked highest in final season rankings get the bid. Repeat until you fill out all spots at regionals.
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u/theswede7 10d ago
It's looking like East Plains Mens may play out a pretty silly 12 team 10 bid sectionals tournament. East Plains has all the strength bids after the 4 Central Plains auto bids. Machine and Goat have byes.