The Weekend Ahead – March 1-3

This week, it's all happening on Friday. I expect Florida to be having approximately none of Oklahoma's high scoring ways. Get on 198 watch for the Gators. Also watch for Minnesota's scores in that meet because the Gophers desperately need a road 196 to contend for a 3rd seed at a Regional. Oklahoma will be visiting Texas Woman's (Shouldn't it be Texas Women's? This really bothers me), and I expect a scoring letdown from last week. Although, the meet is in Texas, so we never know. 

The most interesting meets of the day should be Georgia/LSU and UCLA/Alabama. That Georgia/LSU meet will be all about the beam. Pack rations because it could be a national disaster. I'm calling that whoever wins beam wins the meet because the teams are pretty evenly matched on vault, Georgia has the big edge on bars, and LSU has the big edge on floor.

UCLA has fallen a few spots in the rankings but still has an outside shot to pass Alabama after this meet. The Bruins have a 196.150 that needs dropping, so even a high 196 (regardless of the result) would do wonders. Note the telling comments in the above video about how certain people need to get in on certain events that they haven't been competing at all. I'm skeptical, but if it happens we could have an interesting convergence where UCLA is beefing up lineups while Alabama is using backups to fill in for Gutierrez.

Saturday is a little sparse, but Michigan is in action along with Penn State. I haven't seen Penn State yet this year and am eager to evaluate how the team looks after two consecutive 196.700s.

The non-NCAA scene invades a little bit this weekend with the Nastia Cup on Friday, which is available only to the eleven and a half people who get Universal Sports. I hope we at least get some videos from the competition because it is a good way to scout future top NCAA talent. Then, on Saturday, we have the American Cup. I haven't even thought about elite since last year, but there's not a ton of interesting action after Friday, and it'll be fun to blog the event with an NCAA perspective. We'll greet our new US seniors and rate Val's level of interest in the Canadians.

Note that the Oregon State/Stanford meet will be starting at 7:00 Pacific on Friday even though many schedules list the start time as 5:30 Pacific.

Top 25 Schedule

Friday – 3/1/13
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [14] Minnesota @ [2] Florida
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Ball State @ [19] Kent State
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Nastia's Pink Leotard Jamboree
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [1] Oklahoma @ Texas Woman's  
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [7] Georgia @ [5] LSU
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [23] Maryland @ [11] Auburn
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Missouri, Centenary, Lindenwood @ [25] Arkansas
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [6] UCLA @ [4] Alabama
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [8] Utah, NC State @ BYU
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [9] Oregon State, Cal @ [12] Stanford

Saturday – 3/2/13
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – AT&T American Cup
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [3] Michigan @ Michigan State

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Arizona State @ [15] Arizona
5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [22] Penn State @ [19] Illinois 

Sunday – 3/3/13
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – [21] Kentucky @ Ball State
2:00 ET/11:00 PT – [13] Denver, George Washington, Temple @ [16] West Virginia
5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [18] Ohio State @ Illinois State

Monday – 3/4/13
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [24] Iowa @ [10] Nebraska