UNC Pleaides: A deep dive into "The Streak"
I've never met an ultimate question I couldn't answer with a spreadsheet
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You haven’t lost in four years*, is that good?
*It’s not four full years because of time lost to the pandemic, but it’s pretty close
You’re a senior at UNC Chapel Hill. This is your fourth season playing for UNC Pleiades. You’re a back-to-back-to-back national champion. You have never lost a college ultimate game, 130+ and counting. You are the target of all the envy and rage of the college ultimate world. Life is good. But how did you get here?
Well, peeking back into the history of the D1 women’s division gives us some exciting context. For starters, the only team that had ever delivered a championship to the state of North Carolina in the almost three-and-a-half decades of the division before 2021 was North Carolina Wilmington. Georgia was the only other southern team to bring one home, and outside of a handful of exceptions, the balance of power in the D1 women’s division was out west.
So…what happened? Why this explosion of dominance from Chapel Hill? Well, I think most people from the triangle aren’t exactly shocked at this team’s success. Maybe they’re a little surprised at just how dominant Pleiades have been. I know I am. But if I had to guess, I’d say most people in the triangle expected this core to deliver a championship or two. Why? Well, look at the results from YCCs in 2017-2019, the years the core of this team was playing youth ultimate:
Carolina Warhawks (u20 Girls) record 2017-19:
Would you look at that? They also didn’t lose.
The local community was very aware that this core was excellent. And UNC is fortunate that so many of that core decided to attend. Sure, some players left to play out of state and at other big programs, but the success of the Warhawks also pulled in out-of-state talent. Guess who starred for that back-to-back runners-up DC Rogue team? Future Pleiades standout Ella Juengst, of course.
So that’s obviously an impressive vein of youth talent to tap into for any program. But not losing since before the COVID-19 pandemic is next level wild. Now, winning over 130 games in a row is impressive, as detailed in this article by the lovely Alex Rubin. Highlighted by this fun, unsanctioned game last season:
Yes, that is the college national champs beating a professional team. However, I’ve plated in the college division quite recently. And I think that certain criticisms over how impressive that 130+ number are fair. I played certain teams I was confident I could beat 100 times in a row and others that I’d lose to 100 times in a row. The nature of college ultimate is that there is an incredibly wide gap of talent and skill from top to bottom. Now, what I was curious about was how many good teams Pleiades have beaten in a row. Because as you climb into the top 25, or even the top 20 (nationals cutoff), the talent is more concentrated. So, I made another spreadsheet to find the answer. Using Ultiworld’s end-of-season power rankings, I found the number of ranked teams North Carolina Pleiades have beaten in a row:
I’m afraid I have to issue another correction
Well, isn’t that embarrassing? First, I tweeted that Pleiades had won 62 games in a row against ranked teams. Then I tweeted that it was 63. But after double and triple-checking my work, I’m confident that the actual answer is 64 games in a row. Across four years, North Carolina Pleiades have played 64 teams that ended the year ranked in Ultiworld’s top 25. They’ve won every single game. That is the most impressive thing in college ultimate, maybe ever. Throughout that time, they’ve only played 11 games that have been within even three points and five within two.
Let’s say that, on average, UNC had a 90% chance of winning each of these ranked games. Those are good odds. You’d pick them to win every game they had a 90% of winning. The odds of that happening 64 times in a row is 0.12%. Not 12%, 0.12%. If you want to argue and still point to the fact that UNC has an overwhelming talent advantage in most games they play, even against ranked teams, I hear you. Let’s say they had a 99% chance of winning every game they played against those teams that didn’t make it within two points of them. But since there are still strong teams in the division, let’s say they had just a 75% chance of winning those five games where they were really pushed. That still comes out to a 13% chance of them winning every game, giving maximum disrespect to the rest of the division.
Regardless of hypothetical win probabilities and percentages, there is no denying how impressive this is. Consistency is the end goal of all elite teams. It’s what separates good teams from great ones. Great ones from championship ones. And championship ones from true dynasties. There is so much room for the game and for the overall skill and talent in ultimate to grow. There is no question that a lack of parity makes this kind of dominance more possible. But at the same time, this is still the most talented and deep college ultimate has ever been. When Stanford won three years in a row in the late 1990s or even the mid-2000s, they were not competing against as many good teams as UNC was. That’s the nature of growth in sports. One day, the talent will shift to somewhere else in the division or disperse across more teams. But in the meantime, UNC has a real chance to do something unprecedented, going for their fourth title in a row. The rest of the division will be more motivated than ever to stop them.
One late March weekend in Seattle
Before we go, there’s one particular point in this 64-games-and-counting streak against ranked teams I’d like to examine further. One aspect of long streaks like this and how they break across sports is the fact that the dominant team is often so used to blowing teams out that in a close game, they tighten up, and it slips away from them. Pleiades have only played three universe-point games over the course of this streak. They all came in 2022, culminating in that incredible final against Colorado Quandary. Pleiades held a 4-1 and 7-4 lead before Quandary stormed back to tie the game before the teams traded blows until UNC won 12-11 on universe point. But in the last tournament before the regular season ended, at Northwest Challenge 2022, Pleiades was at their most vulnerable at any point in the last four years.
They played back-to-back universe point games and blew early leads against Vermont and Colorado in the semifinal and final. They had to break to win both games, too. But remarkably, they did, keeping the streak alive, cementing their status as favorites to defend their 2021 title, and riding that momentum to two more national championships. So, what happened in both those games? Well, the short answer is that Dawn Culton happened. Take a look at these absurd stat lines from both those games:
In the semifinal, Culton scored five goals and had two blocks, including the last four Pleiades points of the game, to power UNC to the comeback win.
And in the final, she put together an even crazier two-goal, two-block, eight-assist performance in a preview of the national title game.
It’s obviously an incredible luxury to have a player like Culton, especially for so long, thanks to the COVID-19 eligibility rules. Just look at the Callahan winner’s footwork on the game-winning score against UVM. But I think it’s more impressive that the team’s mentality was strong enough for them to come back and win not just one but both of these games against two incredibly talented teams in their own right. Every single team I’ve ever been on and probably played against, if put in the position with a blown lead and undefeated season on the line, would’ve folded. And they rallied and did it twice in a row. Then they did it again to one of those same teams when the lights were brightest. That specific stretch of play is the most impressive thing in college ultimate.
To check out the full scale of Pleiades’ dominance, check out this spreadsheet.
About The Breakside
This newsletter aims to tackle what I see as a gap in the present coverage of Ultimate as a sport. I hope this newsletter will provide an outlet for important yet overlooked people and stories to receive the coverage and perspectives they deserve.
About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University as an undergrad. I was one of the captains of Brandeis TRON, the open division team. My claim to fame within the Ultimate community is running the @being_ulti account during the week of the 2022 WUCC tournament. I currently write for ClutchPoints Sports. Check me out here. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter at @noamgum or via email at noamgumerman@gmail.com.