The Numbers: Week 1

We have no rankings this week because some of the teams are lazy or whatever and didn't compete last weekend. This also gives the teams that performed well over the last couple of days a chance to screw it up before it counts. If there were rankings, our top 5 would have been as follows:

1. Michigan - 196.575
1. Florida - 196.575
3. Oklahoma - 196.450
4. UCLA - 196.150
5. LSU - 196.075

The first three teams should be pleased with the current course. Each had issues, but there was nothing of major concern for the first meet. The 4th and 5th teams both counted falls and still broke 196, which should seem like an accomplishment. However, the fall on bars for LSU doesn't provide a ton of optimism for depth on their worst event, and UCLA looked depleted on every event, especially vault, where they don't have a 4th routine right now, let alone the 7th and 8th options that good teams need.

Since there are no rankings, let's take a deeper look at the scores for the teams from the preseason top 25 who were in action this week. Stats include all competition routines, not just the five counting scores.

National average by apparatus - Week 1
1. Vault - 9.784
2. Bars - 9.684
3. Beam - 9.649
4. Floor - 9.645

It's no surprise that vault was by far the most successful event. Even though some high profile teams struggled or at least recorded their weakest scores there, vault sees far fewer falls than the other events, which primarily accounts for the significant advantage in score. In a bit of an upset, beam was actually higher scoring than floor for the top 25 teams, but the difference is too small to be significant.

Average routine score by team - Week 1
1. Michigan - 9.817
2. Florida - 9.775
3. Oklahoma - 9.747
4. UCLA - 9.742
5. LSU - 9.724

In spite of introducing the dropped scores into the numbers, the rankings remain identical to the top team scores. Even if we were to continue the rankings, Stanford and Georgia would be next, which also follows the results. Michigan comes out as the clear leader over Florida in these rankings because of much higher 6th scores, so I suppose Michigan wins the week in the tiebreak.



Average vault score by team - Week 1
1. Stanford - 9.850
2. Florida - 9.842
2. LSU - 9.842
4. Ohio State - 9.838
5. Georgia - 9.821

The team that vaulted only five people won the event. None of this dropped 9.725s slop.

Average bars score by team - Week 1
1. UCLA - 9.846
2. Florida - 9.829
3. Georgia - 9.821
4. Michigan - 9.796
5. Ohio State - 9.779

It's positive news for Ohio State in the future that the team made two of the event leaderboards. They are going to be far better than that 194.600.

Average beam score by team - Week 1
1. Michigan - 9.838
2. Stanford - 9.804
3. LSU - 9.792
4. Denver - 9.725
5. Florida - 9.713

Denver had just one score over 9.800 and Florida had a fall, and yet both made the top 5. That's the state of beam right now.

Average floor score by team - Week 1
1. Michigan - 9.846
2. Oklahoma - 9.829
3. LSU - 9.788
4. UCLA - 9.783
5. NC State - 9.754

LSU and UCLA both had falls from this group, but their 9.975s saved them. Plus, a lot of teams were in the 9.5s. Ouchie.

Worst rotation averages by team - Week 1
1. Ohio State floor - 9.404
2. Penn State beam - 9.458
3. LSU bars - 9.475
4. Oregon State bars - 9.479
5. Auburn beam - 9.483

Speaking of ouchie.