USL Western Conference Strength of Schedule Points Projections - Week 21

With another week come and gone in the West, teams continue to look towards the playoffs. Matches such as San Antonio vs Reno featured teams striving for a top spot, and matches such as Tulsa and Oklahoma City featured two teams just hoping to still be playing come playoff time.

I have made a minor betterment to the playoff projections this week by no longer using “average opponent” of future games, but instead running the formula to predict the number of points gained in any given match in an attempt to create a more accurate formula.

1 (Last Week – 1) Real Monarchs SLC (73.7)

2 (2) San Antonio FC (64.8)

3 (3) Swope Park Rangers (59.8)

4 (4) Reno 1868 FC (55.9)

5 (7) Tulsa Roughnecks (53.8)

6 (5) Sacramento Republic (52.4)

7 (6) Phoenix Rising (48.7)

8 (10) Colorado Springs Switchbacks (44.3)

9 (8) Orange County SC (43.7)

10 (9) Oklahoma City Energy (42.7)

11 (11) Rio Grande Valley Toros (39.4)

12 (12) Seattle Sounders 2 (37.3)

13 (13) Los Angeles Galaxy II (30.6)

14 (14) Vancouver Whitecaps 2 (28.3)

15 (15) Portland Timbers 2 (13.7)

The battle for hosting a home match has evolved again, with a gap beginning to form between the sixth and seventh place teams, leaving the teams in the battle for 8^th place nearly ten points back of the battle for 4^th.

At the same time, multiple teams are still in the running, with about ten matches per team left. With the gap only being a couple of games, any of the top twelve sides getting hot at this critical point of the season can sneak into the playoffs.

Hardest average opponent to finish the season (West teams only):

Orange County SC (1.530 points gained/game)

Rio Grande Valley Toros (1.504 points gained/game)

Oklahoma City Energy (1.497 points gained/game)

Easiest average opponent finish to season (West teams only):

Tulsa Roughnecks (1.188 points gained/game)

Phoenix Rising (1.272 points gained/game)

San Antonio FC (1.326 points gained/game)

Who do you think will take the home matches? Who will make the playoffs? Let us know in the comments!