While Manchester's 'Legends never die' keep hold of their top position, GCU's 'Crazy Brick Mover' move up to second from third, GCU's 'JIT Engineering Company' climb to third from sixth, Minnesota's 'UMN Gopher 2' slide down to fourth from second, Manchester's 'Greenfield' drop down to fifth from fourth and GCU's 'IT takes four' jump up to sixth from ninth. NUS's 'Blue Skies' slip out of the top six from fifth to seventh.
At this stage of MERIT we expect commotion of a great range in the percentage improvement. The ranking isn't stable, and there will be more disorder to come, but getting the decisions balanced will improve ranking.
The 294 points gap between first and sixth is not an enormous difference and can be easily bridged. While the leaders from Manchester improved by 21%, GCU, now with three in the top six, seem to be consolidating their effort with improvements of 25%, 23% and 28%.
All the teams are still learning and all are still developing their strategy. How they now play their hand is the key.