The Weekend Ahead – February 22-24

The most interesting meet of the weekend should be the Friday showdown of top 5 teams, Oklahoma and UCLA. Based on recent quality of performance, the Sooners will be expected to win. For UCLA, this meet is about recovering from last week's drab performance and showing a bit more 9.900 gymnastics (if it can be mined in the course of a week). DeJesus will be returning to the lineup. Oklahoma could potentially use a big home score to jump up to #1 in the rankings.

I'll be blogging the whole mess of action on Friday as usual, especially because nearly all of the top teams and best meets are happening at the exact same time (thanks, scheduling). Watch out for LSU on the road where the Tigers could ride another big road score to a serious RQS. On Saturday, Stanford and Utah will be featured in the Pac-12 Network evening meet. Also, don't forget about Michigan competing early on Sunday. It's often easy to forget about the Sunday meets.

There is some inclement weather happening this week, and it has already begun wreaking havoc on the schedule. Boise State has been forced to withdraw from the Nebraska meet, but Denver  charitably allowed them to join in on their Saturday meet instead. This is especially helpful since Boise State does not yet have an RQS and would have been off the rankings next week without an away meet this weekend.

Top 25 Schedule

Friday – 2/22/13
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [23] Kentucky @ [1] Florida
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Iowa State @ [9] Nebraska
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Pittsburgh, Bridgeport, George Washington @ [17] Maryland
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – [8] Georgia @ Missouri
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [5] UCLA @ [2] Oklahoma
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [4] Alabama @ [19] Arkansas
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [6] LSU @ [14] Auburn
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [12] Minnesota @ Iowa
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [22] Washington @ Arizona State
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [15] Arizona, Seattle Pacific @ [11] Oregon State

Saturday – 2/23/13
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [18] Illinois @ [20] Ohio State
6:00 ET/3:00 PT – [21] Kent State @ Northern Illinois
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Michigan State @ [24] Penn State
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [16] Boise State, Utah State, Rutgers @ [13] Denver
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [10] Stanford @ [7] Utah

Sunday – 2/24/13
2:00 ET/11:00 PT – [3] Michigan, New Hampshire, Towson @ [25] West Virginia
3:00 ET/12:00 PT – [12] Minnesota @ Iowa State