Saturday Live Blog – Utah @ Cal; Arizona State @ UCLA

Saturday, February 27

3:00 ET/12:00 PT – Southern Utah @ BYU - SCORES - Stream

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Utah @ Cal - SCORES - Pac-12

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Arizona State @ UCLA - SCORES - Pac-12 (Arizona/LA)

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Eastern Michigan, Pittsburgh @ Ohio State - SCORES - Stream($)

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Winona State, Gustavus Adolphus, Hamline @ Minnesota - SCORES - BTN($)

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – UW-La Crosse @ UW-Whitewater - Stream

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Washington @ Arizona - SCORES - Stream

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Sacramento State, Bridgeport, Northern Illinois @ Nebraska - SCORES

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Centenary @ Texas Woman’s - SCORES - Stream

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Iowa, SEMO, Illinois-Chicago @ Denver - SCORES

Pac-12 day! Scoring should be interesting. SEC scoring went on a bender last night, particularly in the Florida meet, highlighted by that time one judge gave McMurtry a 9.950 for a Yfull that she didn't stick. 

 

Handy reference guide:

 

Pac-12 Championship Preview

EVENING SESSION (Utah, UCLA, Oregon State, Stanford):

Now that Utah is part of the Pac-12, it seems like we always go into the Pac-12 Championship with pretty much the same story. Utah is the highest-ranked and most consistent team, the safest pick to win, but UCLA might be the more talented group if they can actually put it together. Stanford is the dangerous floater who has enough concentrated pretty to beat anyone on any day but might also fall 100 times, and Oregon State always looks like the fourth-best option but then sometimes wins. Every time I've done a preview of Pac-12 Championships, it has been a variation on that same story. This time, it's pretty much the same setup again, except Utah enters in a stronger place compared to the last few years. This year's Utah team is sturdier on beam and even deeper on vault (not to mention the bonus of being home team), and it would be an upset if Utah fails to win. Let's break this thing down by rotation.

Rotation 1 (Utah vault, UCLA bars, Oregon State beam, Stanford floor)


The rotation order couldn't have worked out better in terms of giving us an early sense of who's really in the meet. We'll know after the first rotation which teams are legitimate challengers for the title because the Utes begin on their best event while the three other teams all begin on their weakest events. The teams that haven't figured out their weakness will be in a 0.500 hole after 11 minutes, and it's hard to see a team coming back from that without the help of a Utah mistake.

A 0.500 hole after the first rotation is a realistic possibility because vault is the one event where Utah can truly pull away from the field. The Utes are the #1 team in the country on vault and have been breaking 49.500 all over the place, especially at home. They'll need to show that 49.500 vaulting again on Saturday. Sure, they can win this meet without hitting 49.500 on vault, but looking toward nationals, there's no way Utah contends with the top three without some 49.500 vaulting, at least 49.500. They have too many 9.9s to expect any less, with the usual big three of Dabritz, Delaney, and Wilson, who now have the benefit of nearly equivalent vaults from Lee and Partyka.

UCLA will need to keep things relatively close at the outset on bars, and has the talent to do so, but bars has been a real adventure this year. An adventure called The Chronicles of 9.650. Francis has been a shining beacon of stuck double pikes in the first spot, but for the Bruins, the focus will be on getting through the next three routines intact so that they can hand things off to the 9.9s from Peszek and Lee. Because Peszek and Lee have such high scoring potential, UCLA can get away with 9.825-9.850s from Meraz, Mossett, and DeJesus (DeJesus has the potential for more but has looked sloppier this season) and still be in reasonable contention for a 49.400, but they have to be 9.825s. Not those 9.6s and 9.7s.

It has been a somewhat similar story for Oregon State this year on beam. Beam hasn't been a great event for the Beavs post-Leslie Mak, but it really should be much better. Maddie Gardiner and Chelsea Tang are both excellent beamers for realistic 9.9s, so if everyone else can get their 9.825s, that makes for a solid rotation score that can keep them in contention as they go to the higher-scoring events. The problem is how infrequently that has actually happened. Too often, they've been caught by a little inconsistency and more than a little case of the early-rotation 9.7s. It will be a recurring theme that Oregon State is just a couple early-lineup routines away from being a really good team. 

As for Stanford on floor, it's all about the Ebee. No rotation in this competition needs a single gymnast more than Stanford's floor needs Price. Once again this season, Stanford has been a little too average and flat on floor. There's just not enough going on there. They can pull together a rotation of 9.850s, but that's not competitive with the teams throwing up easy 9.9s in spots 4, 5, and 6. Price has competed on floor once this year, performed a medium-quality routine by her standards, and scored a 9.975. If she's available, 49.3s-49.4s are suddenly completely doable. It not, that puts so much pressure on bars and beam to be perfect at the end of the meet because they will be giving up ground right from the start. 

Various

Another week, another batch of developments. I'll keep these weekly updates going in the off-season as long as there are things to say. Otherwise, I'll start delving into numbers. Comparing 2014 NCAA scoring to previous years seems like it will need to happen at some point.

• First and foremost, it was confirmed today that Rene Lyst will be packing up her meet wardrobe and marching those heels over to Arizona State to take over as head coach following John Spini's retirement. Rene at Arizona State–it makes sense. It seemed like only a matter of time before she extracted herself from that "awkward alert!" co-coaching situation with Mark at Arkansas, but it will be fascinating to see how things play out for her as an independent head coach for the first time. Arkansas has been a very successful team since its inception, but Mark Cook often receives the majority of the credit for that. This is a chance for Rene to establish her own coaching identity in a program that has been screaming for a major shakeup for years. They need to start working beam with the same attitude that Rene uses to shop for clothes, if that makes any sense. 

• Last week, ESPNU profiled the Alabama/Georgia gymnastics rivalry in "Sarah & Suzanne: Into Darkness." 

• For those unfamiliar with the history of that time Sarah was pissed that Georgia used the wrong bars, it was a helpful, basic overview of the evolutions of the Alabama and Georgia programs into actual things with actual fans, unearthing the eyeroll-inducing "sweet" Sarah vs. "nasty" Suzanne narrative from back in the day. Maybe that's why I've always liked Suzanne so much. Even during the interviews in this . . . (are we calling it a documentary? That seems like a stretch . . . featurette?) she still looks like she's holding a shiv just out of shot. I respect that. 

• It didn't tell us anything new or juicy (it was never going to), but it was a perfectly reasonable commercial for the programs and the borderline-terrifying grand dames that built them. Plus, we got to see Kupets again and also how amazing Ashley Miles looks. You know Ashley Miles just wanted to be part of this so that she could be like, "Check this out. Am I a model? Probably." Also, could all those the goobers from the Athens Bee and the Tuscaloosa Aw, Shucks Times or whatever have been any bigger stereotypes of themselves? It was awesome.

• But really, the clothes. The primary motif and thematic journey of "Sarah and Suzanne" concerns the leotard and fashion choices. Who told any of you that any of this was a good idea? You might try to explain it away by saying that it was a different era, but no. This wasn't just some Kerri Strugg's mom (a.k.a. the state bird of the year 1996) action. No one EVER wore clothes like this. 

• Tone it down, Betty Crocker. 

• There were all kinds of strange moments in "Sarah & Suzanne," like when we were treated to a discussion of the perils of Georgia's difficulty while seeing them fall on a layout stepout on beam and a giant on bars. THE DIFFICULTY! Or how much Georgia footage there was of Shayla Worley, Sarah Persinger, and Noel Couch, none of whom ever competed under Suzanne. But for a full guided tour through the trauma, check out Spanny Tampson's breakdown. I mean that in the sense that she broke down the action from the featurette, not like she had a mental breakdown while watching this thing. But you never know. Al Trautwig did make an appearance, and it's always hard to keep going emotionally after that. The biggest problem with Al is that in the last 20 years, he has never gotten past the fact that gymnastics is hard. Yeah, it's hard. Now let's progress from there.  

Fayetteville, AR Regional Preview

From the time I first put together the season schedule and registered who the regional hosts were, Arkansas's meet has stood out as a potentially treacherous one, and now here we are. Arkansas is currently 17th in the country and will play host to a bunch of teams from the west (because regionals make so much sense) - two from Utah, two from California, and one from Arizona. This transplanted regional will begin at 5 ET/2 PT, so it will overlap all the other competitions at some point or another. Be sure to set aside some time to spend with this one.

Competing teams (starting event)
[5] Utah (bye before bars)
[8] UCLA (bye before floor)
[17] Arkansas (vault)
[24] Arizona State (floor)
[30] Utah State (bars)
[34] UC Davis (beam)

The individual competitions are from Illinois-Chicago (Catherine Dion, Gabrille May), Northern Illinois (Kim Gotlund, Amanda Stepp - floor), SEMO (Alyssa Tucker, Taryn Vanderpool), Missouri (Rachel Updike - vault), Texas Woman's (Brittainy Johnson - bars), and Illinois State (Samantha King - beam).

The Favorite


Utah comes into this regional as the favorite, but the Utes' favorite status is not as clear-cut as the other top teams previewed so far. Utah is 2-1 against UCLA this season and has had some struggles throughout the year, so it would be foolhardy to assume any kind of dominance simply based on their #1 seeding.

One of the reasons Utah has steadied as a fairly believable choice to make it back to Super Six is the progress on beam. It's still not a big event for them, and will not be a big event, but they have hit six-for-six in enough meets recently that we can upgrade the rotation to serious-but-stable condition. We'll be monitoring its vital signs throughout the meet, but the prognosis is positive. The Utes are still probably looking at 9.8s for a 49.2 or so, but that should be enough for the moment. Of course, if things take a turn for the dire, the meet is close enough that it will become very interesting for everyone involved. Utah is not one of the top seeds that can count a fall and assume they'll still advance.

Attack of the Beam Monster Part 2: The Revengening is really the only way I see making it out of this group becoming a challenge for Utah because they have been scoring consistently well on the other events throughout the year. In terms of continuing to improve their quality as we head toward nationals, though, there are still a few things I'll be watching out for. Last season was all about the beam troubles for Utah, but at the end of the year, we also began to see some deterioration in the early floor routines (all these 9.6s started to pop up) and the vault landings. Keep an eye out to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to the same gymnasts this season. At Pac 12s, Utah performed well enough on vault, but the landings can certainly improve given that they showed just one stuck vault out of six (from Dabritz on her downgraded full - which helped justify the decision to downgrade). As I've said all year, the end of Utah's vault lineup can compete with any team in the country, but Delaney, Wilson, and Dabritz all need to stick for 9.950s for that to happen.

The Contenders


I'm putting UCLA and Arkansas in the same category for this preview, as the clashing contenders for the second spot for nationals, but I don't think I'm quite as sold on the upset potential in this meet as some other people seem to be. Of course, Arkansas is one of the most dangerous lower-ranked teams and can potentially pull off the upset without needing a total UCLA implosion to do it (another Pac 12s would probably be sufficient to open the door), but I don't think this meet is as close as some of the other third-seed-host regionals. If UCLA actually hits, they should go through regardless of any home boost that Arkansas might receive. The Bruins were pretty poor at Pac 12s and still managed a mid 196, so performing even somewhat better than that should put them out of reach and closer to challenging Utah than being challenged by Arkansas. There's not all that much between UCLA and Utah, but UCLA's lack of consistent scoring this year does not afford them the status of favorite. But as tough as Arkansas can be, UCLA does control its own fate in this meet.

Saturday Notes

We enter a solid day of Saturday competition, starting with UCLA and Arizona State in Pac-12 action, coming off a Friday marked by highs and lows. Utah finished the day yesterday by putting up a colossal 197.825, led by a 49.725 on floor in a season already characterized by big floor scores. Going into this season, we hadn't seen a team score over 49.700 on floor in the regular season since 2008, and it has already happened twice so far.

Alabama also recorded a huge floor number of 49.625, which seems frankly paltry this year by comparison even though it is Alabama's 4th-best floor score in the history of the program, en route to a 197.500, which will see them bounce up a couple places in the rankings to a place closer to where we expect to see Alabama. LSU and Florida also managed low 197s in road performances that they will gladly take for RQS and that will keep them in a comfortable ranking position.

On the contrasting side, we saw Michigan record a score in the high 195s in a meet with just weird scoring, a fair amount of the scores–but notably not each and every one of the scores–were lower than we would expect. You can always find reasons to justify a low score because the deductions exist even if the judges rarely elect to take them, but in the two rotations of that meet that I saw before Georgia and Alabama started, the standard of scoring was different from and inconsistent with what we have seen throughout the country this season. The Wolverines didn't look great, we've seen much better from them, but they didn't look all that bad either. They were evaluated with a different standard, which primarily accounts for the 195.

Bev Plocki had this to say about it:
"You can only control what you can control. You can't control the judging. This was one of the strictest-officiated meets I've been at across the board in all my years. There were some really high-quality routines that were being scored well below their average. No matter how upset or disappointed we are with the way they were judging, we still opened the door for them to take those deductions. Tonight, they just chose to take more. We have to button those things up."

The Oregon State and Cal meet has been cancelled because of poor weather, which is rough for everyone, especially if you were relying on Erika Aufiero's bars score in your fantasy lineup to offset the low scores from Michigan. Just as an example.

I'll be watching UCLA against Arizona State, which begins at 3:30 ET/12:30 PT and giving some general notes on the rotations as we go along.

Corvallis Regional Preview

We finally arrive at a regional where the host is not the top seed. It's the second seed, which is just as effective in reducing upset potential. This is our west coast regional, so it would have been nice if they had scheduled the meet later to separate it from the other meets. Alas, no. It's at 7ET, 4PT along with the Alabama regional.

Rotation order (starting event):
[4] Georgia (vault)
[10] Oregon State (bye before bars)
[16] Arkansas (bye before floor)
[21] Boise State (floor)
[28] Arizona State (bars)
[32] California (beam)

The Favorites


Georgia enters the Corvallis Regional with its highest postseason ranking in the post-Suzanne era. No final conclusions can be drawn about the success of Durante's first year because, well, nothing has happened yet, but after a troubling first month and a half, Durante has put the team in a better position to contend with the top programs. When Clark was fired and Durante hired, I questioned the move, not from any allegiance to Clark but from the perspective that Clark's teams were improving and no one else was necessarily going to be any better. I'm big enough to admit that I might be at least 30% wrong.

Salt Lake City Regional Preview

Our 5/8/17 Regional will take place at the University of Utah at 8:00 ET / 5:00 PT and will feature [5] Nebraska, [8] Utah, [17] Minnesota, [24] Iowa State, [28] Arizona State, and [35] San Jose State

The Favorites:
Unlike the other Regionals previewed so far, this one really could go either way between the top two seeds. Just a few weeks ago, Nebraska defeated Utah in Salt Lake City in a high-scoring affair. It won't take a fall for one of these two teams to fall behind the other; it will come down to the landings. Both Nebraska and Utah should advance easily, so there may not be much drama at this meet. Yet, it will be a matter of pride for Utah to avenge the home loss from a few weeks ago. Losing twice to Nebraska at home is not the tone the Utes want to set entering Nationals.


The Huskers are coming off a victory at Big Tens where they were never legitimately challenged and ended up beating Ohio State by nearly nine tenths. The team has found its core group of seven competitors, and while an injury to any one of them would be devastating, they look solid for the time being. The issue for Nebraska, as it has been for a while, is their status as a three-event team. DeZiel, Giblin, Wong, and Evenstad are all capable of going 9.900 on two or three events, but all of the sudden the wheels fall off the wagon and scatter into a gully once the team goes to beam, where falls and 9.700s are all too often the order of the day. If they can stay competitive on beam (even a 48.8-48.9 is OK), then I give the team at least a fair shot at winning again.


Utah had a strange little meet at Pac-12s. One of the stranger parts was that, for the first time since 2010, the Utes counted a fall on the beam. With Stanford counting a fall and UCLA under-performing, Utah had no business losing this met at home, but the falls from Lopez and Lofgren put them just behind the Bruins.  However, because it was such a rare error, I don't expect it to repeat at Regionals. I do, however, expect to see similar scoring to what we saw at Pac-12s, where the judges were hyper-focused on landings without giving as much notice to the other qualities of the routines. If Utah sticks the way they did two weeks ago, expect a similar scoring situation (as in 13 scores of 9.900+ over 24 routines). The Utes will start on floor, so if they go 49.500 again, don't expect the Huskers to catch up.

Pac-12 Championships Preview

This year, the Pac-12 will be our guinea pig conference (along with the Big 10) for the eight-team, two-session championship format. I'm very much in favor of this format because it gets rid of those insufferable byes and allows us to pay less attention to, for instance, the first session because it will be going on at the same time as SECs. Not everyone loves this format. Jay Clark would prefer a two-day format similar to National Championships. That seems entirely unnecessary and exhausting.

In the Pac-12 this year, the winner will most likely be Utah or UCLA. Oregon State has an outside chance to repeat, but I think they will need some counting falls for that to happen. If everyone hits, then the winner will start with a U. Which U it will be is anyone's guess right now, which will make for a fun duel coming down to the final rotation (with no byes!).

And yet, picking how the teams will stack up is a tough prospect, so let's look at what we have, event by event. On event rankings, I'm not going by the actual rankings, just my own perceptions of quality and potential.

Vault:

1. UCLA

2. Utah

3. Stanford

4. Oregon State

5. Arizona

6. Washington

7. Arizona State

8. Cal

This is the easy one. UCLA has the big edge over the other teams in the conference and will need to ride an advantage on this event if they are to take the title. Tauny Frattone is coming off a 10 on senior day, but she can usually go 9.925-9.950 under normal circumstances with a stick, which she has been doing the last few weeks. Frattone is also in an advantageous position since UCLA directly follows Utah on vault. If the judges go big for a Robarts stick on the Omelianchik, they have to do the same for a Frattone stick. UCLA also sports Olivia Courtney, who has the amplitude and distance to score 9.9 for a non-stick, and Vanessa Zamarripa, who has been vaulting poorly for 9.9s for weeks now. If she actually finds her landing, the score will be huge.

In addition to the aforementioned Robarts, Utah also has clean vaults Kailah Delaney and Georgia Dabritz that can go 9.900. This will be enough to keep them ahead of any of the rest of the teams, but the earlier workers don't quite have the dynamics to challenge UCLA. Peszek and Larson will very likely outscore Lothrop and McAllister. Utah will probably top out around 49.400 on a good day, while that would be a weak score for UCLA.

Down the list, there's not so much impressive vaulting. I put Oregon State below Stanford because OSU just doesn't have much amplitude on this event, and Ivana Hong is really starting to find her form on the FTY for Stanford, which could make the difference. It's close between the two, though.

Pre-Oscar Gymnastics – Arizona State @ UCLA Live Blog

Live commentary after the jump from 5:00 ET / 2:00 PT

UCLA pushed up the start time of their meet on Super Bowl Sunday, but they have not for Oscar Sunday. I'm not okay with this choice. We're gymnastics fans. We care more about the Oscars than we do about the Super Bowl.

That being said, this meet will likely be less predictable than the whole of the Oscar telecast. According to Val, Sam Peszek is still limited to only beam, so there are multiple Wong and Peszek spots that need to be filled on the other events. If they are filling those spots with 9.7s, it could be a long meet. Fortunately for UCLA, they do have Zamarripa back in the all-around. They'll need a 39.500+ from her.

As for scores, UCLA will be at least #5 in the country on Monday. They will move up to #4 if they score 196.125, and they will move up to #3 if they score 196.625. These are realistic and expected scores for a home meet at this point in the season. Even without some of their ideal routines, a 197 should be attainable. 

Arizona State still needs a third road score, so they will be counting this meet in RQS and hoping to go into the mid-195s so they can start dropping those 194s soon. Regardless, their spot as a 4th or 5th Regionals seed looks secure. Last week, Beate Jones scored a solid 39.225 in the AA. They will need a repeat of that performance.

Enjoy.

Utah @ Arizona State - Live Blog

Watch Live from 4:00 ET / 1:00 PT [NOTE CORRECT TIME - I had it wrong before]

Though Florida put up a tremendous score this week, it looks like all Utah has to do at this meet to retain the #1 ranking is score over 196.  That should be no problem for them, but that also should not be the concern for them.  With Pac-12s and Regionals both in Salt Lake City, this team will have few opportunities to become accustomed to competing on the road (and scoring on the road) before Nationals, so this meet takes on added importance both for eventual seeding and for road experience.  It will be important for Utah to get the freshmen Dabritz, Delaney, and Lopez in the lineup significantly over the next two weeks so they can be ready for a Nationals atmosphere.

The gymnast I'll be paying the most attention to in this meet is Corrie Lothrop.  At least through the first month and a half of the season, she has made the successful transition out of the 9.825 territory with strong performances late in the beam and floor lineups.  She has been quite solid in landing her acro elements and appears to be performing with more confidence.  However, I do still have questions about her amplitude and landing positions.  Those questions were not shared by the judges at home, but how she scores on those events at an away meet will be very telling.

Commentary after the jump when the meet begins: