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

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

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

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

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: