Ranking the 2012 Floor Final

Continuing the mission to pick the real winner of things, it's time to look at the 2012 NCAA Floor Final, a.k.a. the vacation home of our very best friend, controversy.

Unlike the vault 10s, in this case we do have an actual winner. Kat Ding won the title with a 9.950 over the 9.9375s for Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs and Geralen Stack-Eaton. There were . . . a lot of opinions about this result the first time around, so it will be interesting to see how things have developed now that we've had months to reflect.

The top 5 finishers are included below. Watch the routines and rank how you think they should have finished. I did not include the 9.900 routines from Zamarripa, Dickerson, and DeZiel because, while they were solid performances, none would be mistaken for a potential winner. The real shame is that Jaime Pisani probably should have been our floor champ, but she didn't have a strong performance in the final.  

(Where would we be without NastiaFan101 uploading all these individual routines?)

Kat Ding - 9.950

#1 UCLA Preview

While it was certainly unusual to see defending champion Alabama ranked #2 in the preseason poll, it's hard to argue that a team with UCLA's talent level should be anywhere but #1 in 2012.  In 2011, they were not a championship-caliber team.  Without Vanessa Zamarripa or Sam Peszek for half the season, this depleted group had to rely on routines from Brittani McCullough and Tauny Frattone on their weaker events where they ideally should not have had to compete.  That UCLA even managed to place second is a testament to this team perfecting the art of maximizing its potential.  Without a significant chunk of star power, UCLA had to get 9.9 routines from unexpected places, like the two that Sydney Sawa put up in Super Six.  What makes UCLA more dangerous in 2012 is that they will also have that deep stable of stars from which they can draw those top scores.

The most exciting change for UCLA this year will be the return of Vanessa Zamarripa who, at her best, churns out 39.600 performances like it's nothing.  Coming off an Achilles tear, it would be foolhardy to assume that Zamarripa will be back to that level immediately.  As we learned from Ask the Bruins, she is not back on floor yet.  This is probably the event where she is least necessary to the team, so it's not a major blow if she's unavailable at the beginning of the season.  They will certainly need her come postseason, but Zamarripa is not as important to the floor lineup as Hopfner-Hibbs, Peszek, or Larson. UCLA will need her abilities more so on vault and bars, where she appears to be on track.

Zamarripa doesn't run away with the "most exciting change" category because UCLA is also debuting freshman Mattie Larson.  Larson has become one of the more beloved elites of recent years because she covers both the "artistry" narrative and the "we love you even though you fell at Worlds" narrative. Combine those with her genuinely elegant execution, and the judges will be itching to give her big scores on each event.  Aside from staying healthy (she's an AOGC elite, so knock on Sequoias), Larson's biggest job in 2012 will be to undergo a successful headcase-ectomy.  Over the years, she never showed her best gymnastics on international assignment and very publicly lost her mind at team finals in 2010. When thinking about UCLA's best possible lineups, Larson has an asterisk next to her name because she will have to develop and prove the ability to hit under pressure in a team environment, otherwise all the talent in the world is irrelevant.

The other scholarship athletes for UCLA this year are Cassie Whitcomb and Dana McDonald.  McDonald is a clean vault and floor specialist.  She will probably see some competition time early in the season, but it's hard to imagine her making March and April lineups unless she has to step in because of injury.  As for Whitcomb, no surprise, she's already dealing with injury.  With the depth on this team, there's no need for her to be contending in the all-around, and she wouldn't make all the lineups, anyway.  Her biggest asset will be her bar routine, where she stood out as an elite with her toe point and good CGA flat hips.    

While beam was the most discussed weakness for UCLA last season (and we'll get there in a minute), if you were to watch a meet without looking at the scores, you would say that bars was just as much of a problem.  Though the award for Most Overscored Lineup is always a very tough category, with all the top teams getting some degree of overscoring at home, I would give the 2011 title to UCLA on bars.  We have to give some credit to them for once again maximizing potential and sticking landings at the end of the season, but this lineup was not particularly strong and often got charitable scoring.  This was never more clear than when Hopfner-Hibbs performed her straddled double layout dismount with a lunge forward and still got a 9.9 from one judge.  On a championship team, Peszek and Hopfner-Hibbs are early-lineup workers at best on bars, not anchors.  This will have to be fixed in 2012, which is why Zamarripa, Whitcomb, and Monique De La Torre will be so important.  Ideally, Lichelle Wong would also make the lineup, but she is still training that double front 1/2 dismount that they scrapped last season because she couldn't compete it without significant deduction, so she'll have to work that out to make the top six. Wong somehow always seems to find a way to not be in lineups she should be in.

There Will Be Costumes

There are a lot of wonderful things to say about UCLA gymnastics.  The very best is that, no matter the situation, it's always a show and they always commit to that show, a show complete with costumes, characters, motifs, and sometimes even a tragedy.

Yesterday, UCLA hosted the "Meets the Bruins" event.  It's like an intrasquad, but with more greatness. Other schools show routines.  UCLA unveils performances.  Some people hate that about them.  These people are no fun, and I don't want you hanging out with them anymore.

No show is complete without a grand entrance:

Come on, they carried her onto the floor.  How can you not love that? 

This routine is completely different than I expected Val to put together for Mattie, but it's excellent.  It's a great lesson that spins are choreography rather than something than can be (or should be) placed into a separate category.  We see so many routines that are more like "OK, I did my dance, now I'm going to do my spin."

"Oops, I almost accidentally did my floor routine in high heels."  #uclagymproblems

Can we convince Aisha to get her tumbling down this year so we actually get to see this routine in competition?  Fortunately, UCLA locked in Gerber II for 2013-14, so we get 4 more years of this.

UCLA is posting a whole slew of videos at the BruinGymnastics youtube page, complete with an identifying bars skills tutorial ("Gienger!").  Don't try to watch the videos with that UCLA all-access player. It's useless nonsense.