ISL Regular Season Scoring Ranks & Strength Of Schedule

We know the final regular-season finish order in the ISL. But which teams had the highest-scoring women’s and men’s rosters?

These ranks are based on season-long scoring, taking each team’s average scoring per meet. Of course, these results are dependent on schedule, so a team with an easier schedule would naturally score more points than a team with a tougher schedule.

Women’s Scoring

Overall Rank Team
Women’s Points Per Meet
1 Cali Condors 327.125
2 Energy Standard 280.25
3 London Roar 251
4 Tokyo Frog Kings 213
5 Toronto Titans 203.625
6 LA Current 198
7 Iron 189.875
8 NY Breakers 155
9 DC Trident 142.25
10 Aqua Centurions 73.625

The Cali women were easily the most dominant cohort in the league this year, averaging almost 47 more points per meet than any other team.

It’s interesting to note that the bottom two teams in women’s scoring were also the two teams left out of the ISL postseason. The Aqua Centurions were averaging about half the women’s points of even the next-lowest-ranked team in the league.

The major outlier here on the low end are probably the LA Current, who sit #3 in our power rankings but were just the 6th-best-scoring women’s roster and almost 130 points per match behind Cali.

Men’s Scoring

Overall Rank Team Men’s Points Per Meet
1 LA Current 261.75
2 Energy Standard 259.375
3 London Roar 230
4 Tokyo Frog Kings 222.5
5 Iron 214.75
6 Cali Condors 211.5
7 Aqua Centurions 198.75
8 NY Breakers 161.25
9 Toronto Titans 154.625
10 DC Trident 134.75

LA really covers over their women’s scoring here, with the league’s leading men’s roster. However, it is worth noting that Energy and LA were actually tied for the #1-scoring men’s roster heading into the final week, and Energy rested star sprinter Florent Manaudou in week 5. LA outscored a Manaudou-less Energy by 9.5 on the men’s side in the final week to take over the #1 rank in men’s scoring.

Cali is the clear low-end outlier here. Despite having the frontrunner for league MVP in Caeleb Dressel, they’re just 6th in men’s scoring and averaging about 50 points fewer per match than LA.

The Aqua Centurions rank 7th in the league in men’s scoring, which is well above their 10th overall rank in our Power Ranks and in overall league scoring. DC struggled here, though, scoring only about half of what the top teams scored on the men’s side per meet, and 20 points below even #9 Toronto.

Mixed Relay Scoring

Overall Rank Team Mixed Relay Points Per Meet
1 Energy Standard 25
2 Toronto Titans 24
3 LA Current 22.5
4 Cali Condors 22
5 London Roar 18.5
6 DC Trident 18
7 Aqua Centurions 15
8 Tokyo Frog Kings 14.5
9 Iron 14
10 NY Breakers 11.5

Energy has dominated the mixed free relay this year, going without a loss in four meets. Toronto might be a bit of a surprise at #2 – they haven’t won a single mixed free relay yet this year, but have used their depth to go 2nd/5th, 2nd/4th, 2nd/4th, 2nd/3rd across their four meets this year.

DC and Aqua performed pretty well despite being the league’s two non-playoff teams, while Iron and New York scored pretty low in this relay for being postseason-bound.

Overall Scoring

Overall Rank Overall Points Per Meet Team W Points Per Meet W Rank M Points Per Meet M Rank Mixed Points
Per Meet
1 564.625 Energy Standard 280.25 2 259.375 2 25
2 560.625 Cali Condors 327.125 1 211.5 6 22
3 499.5 London Roar 251 3 230 3 18.5
4 482.25 LA Current 198 6 261.75 1 22.5
5 450 Tokyo Frog Kings 213 4 222.5 4 14.5
6 418.625 Iron 189.875 7 214.75 5 14
7 382.25 Toronto Titans 203.625 5 154.625 9 24
8 327.75 NY Breakers 155 8 161.25 8 11.5
9 295 DC Trident 142.25 9 134.75 10 18
10 287.375 Aqua Centurions 73.625 10 198.75 7 15

Strength of Schedule

We tried to create a very rudimentary ‘strength of schedule’ to try to quantify which teams had the toughest slates of opponents.

Each team had four matches and 12 total opponents throughout the season. But every team swam at least one other team multiple times, and several teams had one league opponent they never faced this year. We tallied up each team’s twelve opponents, including multi-time opponents. Each team earned 10 ‘strength of schedule’ points for each time they faced the top team in the league, 9 for facing the #2 team in the league, 8 for facing the #3 team, and so on, down to 1 point for facing the #10-ranked team in the league.

Here are two separate ‘Strength of Schedule’ rankings based on two different overall rankings of the teams across the league:

Based on Our End-of-Regular-Season Power Ranks

Here, Energy Standard is #1, Cali #2, LA #3, London #4, Tokyo #5 and Iron #6. The other four are identical to the other ranks.

Strength of Schedule From Toughest to Easiest

  1. NY Breakers
  2. Aqua Centurions
  3. DC Trident
  4. Tokyo Frog Kings
  5. Toronto Titans
  6. LA Current
  7. Cali Condors
  8. London Roar
  9. Iron
  10. Energy Standard

Based on Overall Standings Ranks

Here, Cali is #1, Energy Standard #2, London #3, LA #4, Iron #5 and Tokyo #6. The other four are identical to the other ranks.

Strength of Schedule From Toughest to Easiest

  1. NY Breakers
  2. DC Trident
  3. Aqua Centurions
  4. Tokyo Frog Kings
  5. LA Current
  6. Toronto Titans
  7. Cali Condors
  8. London Roar
  9. Iron
  10. Energy Standard

The takeaway in both ranks is that Energy Standard had an incredibly easy regular-season schedule. They never faced #4 London and only faced Cali and LA once apiece. In the flip side, Energy had 3 matches against Toronto and 2 against New York.

Iron also had a very soft schedule. Though they did have to face Energy Standard twice, they skated by without facing LA and swimming Cali and London just once apiece. Meanwhile Iron got 3 matchups with the very beatable DC Trident.

New York had a brutal schedule no matter which way you slice it. The Breakers faced all 9 league opponents at least once, but had three tough matchups with the league-leading Cali Condors and two against defending champs Energy Standard. They faced every other team just one time, but somehow managed to draw the two best teams in the league to account for almost half of their overall matchups.

For those interested, here is each team’s most-common opponent and the team they never had to face, if any:

Most Common Opponent Never Faced:
Energy Standard Toronto (3x) London
Cali Condors NY (3x) Toronto
LA Current Cali, London, Tokyo, Aqua (2x) Iron
London Roar Cali, LA, Tokyo, DC, Aqua (2x) Energy, Toronto
Tokyo Frog Kings London, LA, Toronto (2x)
(faced every team)
Iron DC (3x) LA Current
Toronto Titans Energy (3x) Cali, London
NY Breakers Cali (3x)
(faced every team)
DC Trident Iron (3x)
(faced every team)
Aqua Centurions London, LA, Toronto (2x)
(faced every team)

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JCO
3 years ago

I believe that men & women should be scored as separate meets, but 100% keep equality in terms of prize money and opportunity

Troyy
Reply to  JCO
3 years ago

Why?

Popovici
3 years ago

Cali condors men are really low 😮

Rachel
3 years ago

While it’s obvious that these schedules were by no means equal, and this definitely accepted some of the final regular season ranks, I would say that it did not affect the teams that made the semifinals. Given that aqua lost to every team, they would have been last no matter the schedule, and DC would have had to face aqua at least twice to make a huge difference. Also wow did NY get screwed. They had to face the current top team 3 times, and they had to face three probably finals teams at the same time twice. Eighth place is probably right, but that schedule was rough.

NJones
3 years ago

The math here is/was so simple…9 other teams… Face every team once, face 3 teams twice. Would have led to much more balanced schedule and logical opportunity for all the stars to trace each other at least once. They could have gone so far too ensure the bottom 4 to 6 pre ranked teams were scheduled in the final two matches to create a tiny bit of head to head excitement over snatching top 8. Plus then top 2 teams who would make the final anyways get a bit of schedule rest instead of resting individual swimmers from the last match.

Gatorchomp
3 years ago

Shocking to see the team that created the league have the easiest and the team who allowed ISL to come in and host the event have the second easiest 😱

BobbyJones
Reply to  Gatorchomp
3 years ago

Mentioned Energy had it easy day one, when we saw they had the longest rest out of all teams after 2 matches

Troyy
Reply to  Gatorchomp
3 years ago

Iron still would’ve made the post-season no matter what. AQC and DCT were just that bad.

Joe
3 years ago

Just worth pointing out that in the list of toughest schedules, you’d expect the better teams to have “easier” schedules and the worse teams to have “tougher” schedules, because e.g. the Cali Condors can’t face themselves. This somewhat mitigates Energy’s placement (though whichever way you cut it ES still had it easy).

Nevertheless, the list really highlights that Iron had a soft schedule, and the Frog Kings got screwed over.

Coach Mike 1952
Reply to  Joe
3 years ago

We have all pretty much noted (with somewhere between chagrin & disdain) that ES had the softest schedule. The question is – was it by design?

coach
Reply to  Coach Mike 1952
3 years ago

Yes.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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