1. (-) Northwood Blue
- The only undefeated team across both divisions of the CCA Summer Series, Northwood made the #1 spot an easy decision, as all our rankers unanimously had them at the top spot. Northwood’s closest matches were actually against two of the lower ranked East teams with 3-2 victories over Oakland and Michigan. If Northwood needs to watch out for anything, it’d be overlooking the weaker teams and not playing at 100% against them. Otherwise Buddy, Pirates and Noxes are cruising into playoffs with a game record of 27-4 against their other 9 opponents.
2. (-) University of Ottawa
- Ottawa will retain their #2 seed after a solid finish to the season, going 12-3 in games in their final two weeks of the season. Their lone series loss comes to the guys right above them, which shows how strong both these teams really are. This could be a potential Eastern Conference Finals slugfest with both teams favoured to be among the top 4 that make the Championship. We’ll have to wait and see if Ottawa can get their revenge, but for now our rankers are confident that Ottawa sits just below Northwood.
3. (+1) Akron Zips
- With a strong finish to the season, Akron will leapfrog over LSU Purple and secure the #3 ranking. Our rankers were very split with Akron and LSU, B, but at the end of the day, while both finished with 8-3 records, and our rankers gave Akron the benefit of the doubt with their defeats being to better teams (2 of 3 being right above them in the rankings). Akron seemed able to blow through the lower half of the Eastern Conference, dropping just 3 games across their 8 series victories this season. They’ll need to prove they can take down the top few teams though if they want a shot at the Championship.
4. (-1) LSU Purple
- A 1-3 loss to UCSB gave some reason for concern to some rankers who had LSU as low as #5 and #6, while others were confident that this team will show up for playoffs having them as high as #2 in the nation. Regardless, LSU Purple find themselves as the highest rated West team, and 1st place in the Western Standings heading into playoffs. Headed into the playoffs at full strength, we’ll finally be able to see if the regular season really does mean nothing.
5. (-) UCF knYtz
- UCF rounds out our top 5, making things easy for the rankers by beating all 8 East teams ranked below us, and losing to only the 3 East teams above them. There may be a bit of a gap between UCF and the other top 4 teams currently, but if UCF can continue to beat those teams below them, they should be able to easily slide into the #4 seed in the Championships.
6. (-) UNT Esports
- Although UNT had an out of character loss to UTA late in the season, they’ll still find themselves with the #6 spot after a strong 8-3 season. With wins over other top West teams like Arizona and LSU Gold, North Texas has proven that they still have what it takes to be one of the top Western teams. They even missed out on the #1 seed in playoffs by just 1 game differential to LSU Purple. While their team might not be as flashy to the rankers as LSU’s or Northwood’s, they still have a dangerous squad led by dbanq and 2Fast, and will look to show that in the playoffs.
7. (+1) LSU Gold
- LSU Gold will jump a spot despite losing two of their final series of the season. They still finish with a 7-4 record which slots them in at the #4 seed on game differential behind Arizona, but our rankers were more confident in the LSU Gold team heading into playoffs, leading to the higher ranking. A win over Arizona in the regular season also helps the Gold squad prove themselves apart from the Wildcats. LSU would love nothing more than an LSU vs. LSU Semi-Finals in the West, as both squads look to make the Championship.
8. (-1) Arizona Wildcats
- Late season losses to Cal Poly and LSU Gold will end what could have been a conference winning season for the Wildcats, as they’ll settle for a 7-4 record instead. They’ll be confident in their playoff chances though after a 3-0 regular season win over LSU Purple. If they can get that far, they certainly have a shot to do it again. They’ll have to go through UNT first, however, who they lost to 1-3 earlier in the season.
9. (-) USF Bulls
- A 3-0 victory over Akron highlights the season for USF that was otherwise pretty *okay*. The Bulls went 5-2 against teams below them in the rankings while going just 1-3 against the ones above them. They’ll have possibly the best chance of any team outside the top 4 in the East to make the championships, as they have a predicted match against Oakland, and then UCF to get there.
10. (+2) UT Arlington
- The first team on the rankings to change more than one spot from the previous rankings, UTA will pick up two spots after a 3-1 victory over UNT and a 3-0 victory over LSU Purple. Despite a solid 6-5 record in the West, UTA has fallen to some teams below them including TTU, Mizzou, and UCSB. UT Arlington finds themselves in a similar spot to the Bulls, with a solid chance to make it out of the West despite not being in the top 4. They’ll most likely take on Missouri S&T and then LSU Gold to get there.
11. (+4) Mizzou
- Mizzou find themselves with the highest ranking of any Div 1 team with a losing record. Despite a slow start to the season, Mizzou pulled it back with a 4-2 record in the last few weeks to pull it back to 5-6. UTA is the only team above them in the rankings that they’ve beaten so it will be interesting to see if they can punch above their weight in the playoffs.
12. (+12) Ohio State BGC
- Just two weeks ago OSU BGC found themselves ranked 24th, 2nd to last in all of Div 1, and now I get to write about them as the last of the featured teams! Probably the most fun story to watch over recent weeks, OSU started the Summer Season losing 6 straight series, and trending downwards towards a season they’d like to forget. Instead of giving up, the boys went on a tear, winning 5 straight series to end the season at 5-6. While 4 of those 5 wins came against teams below them now in the rankings, a win over USF is still impressive. They have a potential matchup with Akron in the playoffs so they’ll need to step it up even further if they want a chance to complete the fairy-tale.
13. (-3) Cal Poly A
14. (+3) CSU Rams
15. (-4) NoVa
16. (+4) Texas Tech University
17. (-3) Penn State Esports
18. (-) Long Beach
19. (+2) University of Michigan
20. (+2) UCSB
21. (-8) Missouri S&T
22. (-3) OSU Gray
23. (-7) RIT Black
24. (-1) Oakland University
