Comings and Goings

Oklahoma won the national title six whole days ago, which is like a thousand years ago. Sorry, Oklahoma. We're moving on. What have you done for us lately? Basically nothing? That's what I thought.

The 2017 season is just around the corner, as long as that corner is really, really far away. We don't know anything real about 2017 yet, but we do know which valuable gems and enthusiastic leaders in the training gym we won't see next year, along with which bright new lights full of possibilities and undiagnosed shin problems will be joining the teams in their place.

Detailed looks at each team and roster will come much later, when the season approaches and I actually vaguely know who these JO gymnasts are, but let's call this a preliminary glance at who's coming and who's going on each team now that the 2016 season is closed and locked away forever and the traditional eight-month moratorium has been placed on the terms "parity," "yurchenko arabian," "confident leadoff," and "life lessons." I've placed the top teams into various categories based on the current outlook and added the RQSs for the routines they will lose after 2016.

This is, of course, assuming that people do what they're supposed to and don't suddenly turn pro or run off to join a traveling circus or whatever.

Smooth sailing

LSU
Out: Jessica Savona, Randii Wyrick, Michelle Gauthier
In: Ruby Harrold, Kennedi Edney, Ashlyn Kirby

Savona - VT - 9.820 avg; UB - 9.840; FX - 9.902 avg
Wyrick - UB - 9.810; FX - 9.905



The Tigers certainly lose a few critical routines, the most important being Savona's floor, though they already gained some experience with life after Savona's vault and floor when she was out early this season (and life after Wyrick's bars when she didn't compete in the postseason). They survived, for the most part. Several of these openings should be filled by people already on the roster, and while I don't think we can have any expectations for Priessman at this point because any week she's healthy enough to compete is just a bonus, Kelley should do more next year. Add to that this freshman class, and I think there's every reason to expect LSU 2017 to be stronger than LSU 2016. 

ALABAMA
Out: Lauren Beers, Carley Sims
In: Maddie Desch, Wynter Childers, Shea Mahoney

Beers - VT - 9.905; UB - 9.690; FX - 9.915
Sims - FX - 9.868

Alabama is in a similar position to LSU in terms of not losing that many routines, though Alabama's losses carry a bit more significance, especially on floor with the team's two strongest floories departing. They'll need some of the upperclassmen like Brannan to step up and be a little more Beersy on those events and a little less middle-of-the-lineupy, but with increased contribution from a potential star like Ari Guerra who didn't figure at all by the end of the season and the introduction of Maddie Desch and Wynter Childers, Alabama's first-ever recruit who's also a citizen of District 1, I'm not too worried about the look of Alabama's future roster.

CAL
Out: Serena Leong (?), Kristina Heymann
In: Cassidy Keelen, Rachael Mastrangelo

Cal can't have much to complain about in terms of roster shake-ups since the only two seniors on the roster for 2016 were Heymann, who used to contribute a backup vault, and Leong, who has been injured forever and would be in line for a redshirt season. When healthy, Leong was half of the duo that ushered in Cal's rebirth, along with Asturias. Regardless, Cal shouldn't have to lose anything at all from this season's 7th-place team, only gain for next year. The future is bright.  


Dark, but hopeful
These schools will lose many more significant routines than the smooth-sailing schools, but their incoming classes are cause for optimism about maintaining or improving their current levels nonetheless.

OKLAHOMA
Out: Haley Scaman, Keeley Kmieciak, Hunter Price, Nicole Turner
In: Maggie Nichols, Brenna Dowell, Brehanna Showers, Jade Degouveia

Scaman - VT - 9.890; UB - 9.880; FX - 9.945
Kmieciak - VT - 9.865; UB - 9.930; BB - 9.870; FX - 9.870
Price - VT - 9.871 avg



Oh hi, we just won a national championship, and we're going to have Maggie Nichols and Brenna Dowell (back) next year. Oklahoma is losing eight routines from the championship lineups (which is a high but not necessarily devastating number), though nearly every one of those routines was a realistic and regular 9.900. But then, if Nichols and Dowell do show up and deliver next year, that's pretty much your eight high-scoring replacement routines right there (Dowell didn't compete beam in 2015 but I think we all expect that she will Brandie Jay on beam at some point in her OU career). That doesn't even account for the other newcomers, the traditional Oklahoma magicking up of unexpected routines, and the extra redshirt season from long lost Maile Kanewa.

FLORIDA
Out: Bridget Sloan, Bridgey Caquatto, Bianca Dancose-Giambattisto, Morgan Frazier
In: Amelia Hundley, Alyssa Baumann, Rachel Gowey, Maegan Chant

Sloan - VT - 9.900; UB - 9.945; BB - 9.910; FX - 9.950
Caquatto - VT - 9.810; UB - 9.915; FX - 9.900
BDG - UB - 9.865

You wouldn't think the Gators would be in much trouble next year since they're simply losing the services of that non-competing walk-on Bridget Sloan. (Who?) Still, somehow, Florida is bleeding the same number of essential routines as Oklahoma, with the added problem of losing the team's big old star, 10.0-machine, and four-year identity of the program. It's a worry. Fortunately, as Jean-Ralphio would say, this freshman class is off the cherrrrts.

Because Florida is losing such important gymnasts, however, these newbies can't come in and be I'm-not-helping elites who are perpetually injured. They have to be multi-event 9.9s, which will make it interesting to watch how they progress during this summer's Trials season. None are in the serious hunt for the US Olympic team, but that doesn't mean they can't be ground into a fine powder trying. Baumann and Gowey are beautiful rays of starlight, but they also have that fragile "I can only do bars and beam in college because my bones are now made of tears and hope" look to them, and Amelia Hundley is from CGA, so enough said. Florida will need to get a couple big leg-event routines out of this group.

Georgia Regional Preview

A quick glance at Saturday's schedule reveals that regionals have been planned even more horrifically than usual this year. There will be a point during the day at which five of the six competitions will be occurring simultaneously, mostly because they hate us and want us to miss everything. And by they, I mean the people. The people who do the things. Spread the regionals throughout the day, is all I ask. The silver lining to all of this is that Georgia's regional begins an hour before all the others, and Georgia starts on beam. That means we can watch that entire emotional roller coaster unfold without distraction. Thank you, Georgia, for your time zone.

Competing teams (starting event)
[3] LSU (bye before bars)
[9] Georgia (beam)
[14] Oregon State (floor)
[22] Arizona (bye before floor)
[27] George Washington (bars)
[36] Michigan State (vault)

Competing individuals
NC State (Brittni Watkins – AA; Chelsea Knight – VT; Nicole Wild – BB)
Maryland (Kathy Tang – VT, FX; Abbie Epperson – UB; Macey Roberts – FX)
North Carolina (Morgan Lane – AA; Kaitlynn Hedelund – UB)
Towson (Tyra McKellar – AA; Mary Elle Arduino – BB)
William & Mary (Brittany Stover – AA)

The favorite – LSU


LSU should join Oklahoma and Florida at the same level of heavy, heavy, super favorites to advance from regionals, though the Tigers may feel a little more pressure in this one given the quality of the opposition and the scoring pedigree shown by Georgia and Oregon State, both historically and lately. This competition features the second-deepest collection of 1-2-3 seeds (behind the Michigan regional), so LSU will not be able to afford any mind-losing on beam. These other teams are too capable of taking advantage. Sans any mind-losing and fall-counting, however, LSU will slide through to nationals without forcing DD to punishment-sequin anyone.

The Tigers should have been right in the hunt for the SEC title this year but ended up a step behind Florida and Alabama entirely because of their performance on bars in the first rotation. In fact, if you take the scores from just vault, beam, and floor, LSU wins the competition. Lucky, lucky LSU, they'll be starting on bars at regionals. You're welcome. This LSU bars lineup should be quite strong, but as we saw at SECs, it has emerged as the team's weak event and is still too reliant on Finnegan saving Earth through the medium of toe point for a 9.950. Wyrick hasn't shown a great deal consistency since returning, Zamardi can often dismount herself down to 9.850, and Priessman has a couple built-in errors on the pak and a DLO that can look troublingly Shades of Shayla sometimes. All of them could score quite well, but they're walking a fine line between greatness and getting stuck in the 9.800s, as happened at SECs. As we learned, that's not going to cut it when trying to beat Florida.

The fight – Georgia v. Oregon State


I considered throwing Georgia up into the favorite category with LSU as I do think Georgia should be able to 197 its way through this one, especially at home, but Oregon State proved with its performance at Pac-12s to be among the most dangerous and compelling upset challengers in the country. The Beavs simply suffered the (bad) luck of the draw in getting placed with Home Georgia since the original, non-host-adjusted draw would have seen them placed with Road Denver, where they would have been favorites to qualify. This job is much more challenging. The Beavs will take some confidence that the 196.925 at Pac-12s beat the 196.850 Georgia put up at SECs. Not equivalent meets, no host advantage, etc, but certainly a complication to this regional. On the other hand, Oregon State has not hit 197 yet all year, and in spite of all of the Gymdogs' problems, they have done so in three of the last four meets and really should at regionals.

Pac-12 Championship Preview

Saturday 3/19
Afternoon session 4:00 ET/1:00 PT
Evening session 9:00 ET/6:00 PT

The Pac-12 should take pride this season in winning the award for the weirdest conference championship scenario. Stanford is the #6 seed and competing in the "who even are you?" afternoon relegation session in spite of being quite a realistic title contender and possible winner, which if nothing else, will serve to make sure we all pay more attention to the afternoon session instead of getting distracted by the simultaneous Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC action. Fun fact: there will be at least 30 minutes during which all four of those championships are going on at the same time. Well, we've had a good life.

Stanford's last meet featured a relative crushing of Georgia and UCLA, so if that's any indication, Stanford is currently in the midst of pulling a Stanford once again this year. But, let's begin with the ones who were good all season long and qualified for the coveted evening session.  

EVENING SESSION
Utah, UCLA, Cal, Oregon State

Once again, Utah has earned the top seed in the conference on the back of resolutely having the fewest meltdowns. Hooray! Seven straight weeks of 197s coupled with breaking the 197.5 barrier in the last two outings has given the Utes a fairly comfortable ranking lead over the remaining Pac-12 teams, meaning they'll be favorites heading in. Given what UCLA and Stanford can do, however, there shouldn't more than a few tenths in this either way with hit meets all around (ahahahahahaha), so we have at least some reason to hope for excitement. UCLA is capable of busting out a massive day, and after Stanford goes, we'll have the benefit of a legitimate pace standard through which to gauge Utah and UCLA's performances. So, let's break this thing down.

Rotation 1: UCLA vault, Cal bars, Utah beam, Oregon State floor



Event RQS for rotation 1:
Utah 49.290
UCLA 49.165
Oregon State 49.165
Cal 49.110

Of course UCLA is the team that drew its arch-nemesis, Olympic order, meaning the Bruins already have a four-tenth deficit, and the competition is two days away. It actually is probably beneficial to the Bruins as they make their money on beam and floor and would rather end there than begin there, hoping to squeeze out some home-meet level scoring as Cipra and Bynum on floor will be the last routines of the competition, at the end of a long day, once the judges are already halfway through the whiskey bottle. I know. That's not right of me to say. They'll obviously have finished the whiskey by that point and be on to the cooking sherry and rubbing alcohol.

As for vault, UCLA has lacked the required landing control and difficulty (having to rely on Bynum's arabian and Pua's roller coaster 1.5), often bouncing back on fulls and hoping to get a 9.825 out of them. The sticking shoes showed up just once a couple weeks ago to earn UCLA a 49.375, but more often the score has been about 49.1. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but the Bruins will hope to go over 49.2 to keep pace early. None of the teams are starting on particularly strong events, so don't expect anyone to run away with this thing at the beginning.

Utah's beam will be among the key rotations to keep every eye on because of Stover Watch 2016. She may be able to compete beam at Pac-12s after all, and if she's back in form, that bolsters Utah's scoring potential by a solid tenth, maybe more, and seriously reduces the Fall Terror Index. It was rising considerably depending on who was going to have to come into the lineup. Utah has had its share of falls this season, but this isn't among the most terrifying beam lineups in the conference. Lopez is currently doing the best beam work of her career, and if Utah can get at least 9.875s from her, Rowe, and Stover (?), along with two other hits, breaking into 49.300+ range seems doable, at least depending on how some of those early-lineup short splits are being evaluated. If the Utes emerge from beam in the first rotation with a true lead, that significantly fuels their chances because they'll be heading off to higher-scoring, lower-risk events from here. If it's 49.1 or lower, ring all the bells because it's feeding time for the vultures. 

The Weekend Plans – March 11-13

The last weekend before championship season. The last weekend of only two judges. The absolute last weekend of "exploring depth." We hope. Some teams are still "exploring depth" in May. This weekend can be interesting to watch in terms of lineups, which teams decide to use it as an opportunity to rest gymnasts versus which teams feel it's necessary to solidify final lineups this week before the various championships begin. Most teams fall into the latter category and have been using the past couple meets to throw in some rest weeks for various elites and fragiles, but we'll see.

For many teams that are eager to solidify lineups, this weekend becomes the final chance to try to squeeze their 90%-injured athletes into the lineup and make sure they're good to go for the postseason. LSU will hope to get Priessman back into action on Saturday, and if she's actually back with the good and hitting, she could be LSU's secret weapon for a title run. If not, they'll want know that before SECs. UCLA has also been sans about a million crucial routines in recent weeks, with Peng out, no Dejesus/Cipra/Francis on floor last week, and with the deus ex machina that's suddenly going to make bars better somehow still waiting to appear. Um...we need you? 

Top 25 schedule 
Friday, March 11

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – North Carolina @ [2] Florida

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Iowa State @ [21] Kentucky

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Pittsburgh @ [25] West Virginia
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [15] Missouri @ Western Michigan

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Arizona State @ [7] Auburn

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Utah State @ [11] Arkansas

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – BYU @ [20] Arizona

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Southern Utah, San Jose State @ [12] Boise State

10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [14] Cal, Sacramento State @ UC Davis

Saturday, March 12

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Big Five Meet #1: [6] Michigan, [18] Iowa, [19] Minnesota, Rutgers @ Penn State

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Big Five Meet #2: [16] Nebraska, [23] Illinois, Michigan State, Maryland @ Ohio State

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [9] Georgia @ [5] Utah

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [3] LSU, [16] Oregon State, New Hampshire @ Texas Woman’s

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [10] Denver, Seattle Pacific @ [24] Washington

Sunday, March 13

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Kent State, Yale @ [22] George Washington

2:00 ET/11:00 PT – [25] West Virginia @ Pittsburgh

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [1] Oklahoma @ [8] UCLA

Live blogging
ALL. THREE. DAYS. It's a bit of a weird one on Friday. We're used to the big Friday night SEC clashes (or FRIDAY NIGHT HEIGHTS, as the cool kids call it), but this Friday sees exactly no meetings between top-25 schools. I'll certainly keep an eye on the big guns like Florida and Auburn, but the absence of significant dual meets also means that this should be a worthwhile chance to check in on non-famous teams we need to see, like Boise State.

Things get slightly more real on Saturday with the qualifiers to Big Tens. But here's something dumb: The first meet will be broadcast live on BTN. (Yay!) After that, instead of showing the second meet, BTN will be showing the tape-delayed Nebraska/Penn State meet from January. Yeah, uh....WTF? Anyway, I'll keep it going through Georgia/Utah and then return on Sunday for Oklahoma/UCLA. Pac-12 coming through with the good ones this week.

Rankings
In the top 10, we could see some jockeying for a place or two this week. Utah, Michigan, and Auburn in 5, 6, 7 may shuffle themselves around, and Georgia and UCLA could flip-flop depending on which team is less terrifying, but the real action happens farther down the rankings. (Georgia theoretically has a shot to pass Auburn for the evening session at SECs, but it's not too, too likely. Auburn can clinch with a 196.950, and Georgia would need an Auburn miss and a 197 of its own to have a shot.) 

Utah and UCLA have secured spots in the big-girl session at Pac-12s, but their companions are still TBD with Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, and Washington all remaining in contention. Stanford and Cal currently inhabit those spots, but Stanford is out of action this week. Cal needs 195.675 to pass Stanford, while Oregon State needs 195.850, and Washington needs 196.350. All attainable, which means it may come down to which two sides pass Stanford by the most. Saturday evening just got interesting.

Nebraska's performance in the Big Five will also be critical. The Huskers are currently in 16th but have a 195.350 road score to drop and could move as high as 11th with a big result, which would drastically change the regional picture.

We'll know more about what teams need to do to make the top 12/18 after this week because there are still a ton of different scenarios at this point, but farther down the rankings, Bowling Green is developing into a story. Bowling Green currently sits in 38th, .050 out of the regional spots, but with a meet on Thursday and another on Saturday, a serious chance to move up with some mid-195s jas suddenly presented itself. Bowling Green hasn't made regionals since...quarter past ever? 

Saturday Live Blog – Oklahoma @ Georgia; Utah @ Stanford

Saturday, February 20

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Oklahoma @ Georgia - SCORES - SECN

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Alabama, Denver, Cornell @ Penn State - SCORES - Stream(free)

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Utah @ Stanford - SCORES - Pac-12

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Cal @ Oregon State - SCORES - Pac-12 Oregon

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Towson @ Iowa - SCORES - Stream($)

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Pennsylvania, Temple, Ursinus @ Rutgers - SCORES 

10:15 ET/7:15 PT – Winter Cuppity Cup Cup Cup – SCORES/STREAM

Joyful times to be had by all! Until we get to Georgia on beam. Then...we'll see. The main focus of the day will be everything, but mostly Oklahoma and Georgia because I'm fascinated to see those two up against each other. I don't think it's going to be the cakewalk for Oklahoma it might seem based on most previous scores, so that's obviously the kiss of death. Enjoy reading that sentence after Oklahoma wins by three points.

First eye goes on that meet. Second eye on Utah and Stanford because that's now an urgent scoring assignment for Stanford. Remaining eyes on Iowa's scores and the "who's fourth-best in this conference" showdown between OSU and Cal. Oh, and Alabama! Too much!

Also, why you should be a fan of Kaytianna McMillan.

"That was a good sentence. We have like maybe two."

And then tonight, the elite boys get their Winter Cup on, which is always a treat. It's like gymnastics, but where everyone falls on everything. It's really fun. You'll like it a lot.

Saturday Live Blog – [5] LSU @ [11] Georgia; Washington @ [6] Utah; [16] Oregon State @ [7] UCLA

A big day! I'll keep this blog going throughout, sort of like mini-regionals, so just keep scrolling through the mass of ramblings as the day progresses.

Saturday, February 13

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [5] LSU @ [11] Georgia - SCORES - SECN

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Penn State @ [23] Ohio State - SCORES - Stream($)

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Iowa @ [20] Illinois - SCORES 

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Southern Connecticut @ [22] New Hampshire - SCORES 

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Washington @ [6] Utah - SCORES - Pac-12

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [13] Stanford @ Arizona - SCORES - Pac-12 (Arizona/Bay Area)

11:00 ET/8:00 PT – [16] Oregon State @ [7] UCLA - SCORES - Pac-12



In the rankings fight, LSU will find it challenging to move up at all based on today's performance, needing a 197.900 to ahead ahead of Alabama. In RQS, there's still plenty of time to get scores and LSU has four road meets remaining including this one, but with only one vaguely usable road score on the resume so far, a big number today would do a lot to solidify that ranking.

The Weekend Plans – February 5-8

After this weekend, a number of teams will be halfway done with their regular-season schedules. Why yes, we did just start this two seconds ago. 

Top 25 schedule

Friday, February 5

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [1] Florida @ [11] Georgia

7:30 ET/4:30 PT – [23] West Virginia @ Iowa State

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [2] Oklahoma, [10] Auburn, Illinois State @ Texas Woman’s

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – SEMO, Lindenwood @ [16] Missouri

8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [25] Kentucky @ [4] Alabama

8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [8] Arkansas @ [6] LSU

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [9] Boise State @ [24] Southern Utah

Saturday, February 6

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [7] Utah @ [5] UCLA

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [19] Illinois @ [18] Minnesota

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [14] Nebraska @ Iowa

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Utah State @ [13] Denver

Sunday, February 7

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Towson, Bridgeport, Brown @ [22] New Hampshire

2:00 ET/11:00 PT – [17] George Washington, Northern Illinois @ Kent State

3:00 ET/12:00 PT – [23] West Virginia @ [2] Oklahoma

Monday, February 8

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Maryland, Eastern Michigan @ [3] Michigan
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Arizona State @ [12] Stanford

10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [15] Oregon State @ Washington

10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [20] Arizona @ [21] Cal

Live blogging
Friday and Saturday. On Friday, my focus will be Florida/Georgia, the TWU meet featuring Oklahoma and Auburn, and Arkansas/LSU, with perhaps brief check-ins with Kentucky/Arkansas. Saturday is all about the Utah/UCLA rivalry. Also on Sunday, check your cable options if that's your kind of thing because Oklahoma's second meet of the weekend will once again be broadcast on some really random networks. Otherwise, just spend the day making fun of handegg like a normal.

Friday
-Coming off the pile of gold doubloons falling from the ceiling that was Florida's meet last Friday, it's hard to envision any kind of drop in quality coming into the Georgia meet. The Gators will be major favorites against the have-we-stopped-reeling-yet Gymdogs. As the road team, however, Florida may be hit with a reality stick this time around as to what scores they're really earning for hit routines. Because Georgia has never exhibited crazy scoring. Never ever. I don't know what you're talking about. 

If Georgia is to pull off the upset, it will probably take Florida counting a mistake, but it will also take winning vault. That's the one event where Georgia may find an opening. While Florida displayed much-improved landings over the weekend, and Georgia the opposite, Georgia has a touch superior difficulty and the real capability to stick for 49.5s, especially at home, which not that many teams have. If Florida's vault landings return to mid-January level, Georgia could gain some very valuable early tenths.

Of course, we can't go much further without talking about Georgia's beam. It's the all-important factor that will decide whether this meet is even in the vicinity of close. Last weekend, The Gymdogs graduated to just one fall, which was a laudable achievement, but they must take the next step and actually hit six whole routines this time. That's the short-term goal, but one that's immediately necessary with a tough opponent like Florida. The long-term goal, which could be decisive when evaluating postseason aspirations, is not just getting six hit routines but getting them from the six highest-potential scorers. Keep watching the lineup members and order. If Georgia is forced to compromise too much scoring potential in order to get a hit rotation, by removing pretties or moving top workers to early spots (my most loathed of strategies), that's almost as bad as having a fall. 

As for the other events, Georgia has impressed so far on bars and floor. This was the least terrifying January floor performance of the Durante era, and bars looks much stronger than I thought it would based on preseason showings, with a particular gold star to Gracie Cherrey for cleaning up her DLO so dramatically in a short period of time. The question going forward for Georgia on bars will be Brandie Jay's dismount. She's capable of a big score on bars but doesn't have the most pristine form or handstands in the world. Couple that with a DLO 1/1, difficult to stick and maintain body shape, and she's always on the verge of getting dropped down to 9.800, a score that looks comparatively harsh against the rabble of much less inspiring 9.800s that we see all over the place. The team needs a 9.900 from Jay pretty much every time, so when will be the time to introduce a more cynical, simpler dismount so that she can join the ranks of stuck dismounts on this team? The Gators have more of those likely 9.9s, even for Piked Giant McGee, which will give them the bars edge.



On floor, I still think Florida is suffering from a case of the half-a-lineups, in spite of the score last weekend, but the big routines from Baker and friends will likely overshadow what Georgia has to offer. That's why vault is so important for the GymDawwwwwwwwwgs. I added extra w's because I can't take it seriously. 

The Weekend Plans – January 22-24

Apparently, the east coast broke, so some of these teams will not be competing this weekend because they're being preserved in ice for future archaeologists to find. George Washington is out of Saturday's meet, but as of now, the meet is still expected to go ahead. Penn State was supposed to travel to Maryland, but that meet has been postponed because of "as if."

Top 25 schedule + other notables

Friday, January 22

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [10] Arkansas @ [4] Alabama

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Iowa State, Arizona State @ [2] Oklahoma

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [9] Georgia @ [14] Missouri

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [3] Michigan @ [17] Illinois

8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [1] Florida @ [8] Auburn

8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [20] Kentucky @ [7] LSU

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Utah State @ [23] Southern Utah

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [13] Boise State, UC Davis @ BYU

Saturday, January 23

3:00 ET/12:00 PT – [5] UCLA @ Arizona

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [11] Oregon State @ [6] Utah

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – *[12] George Washington, [15] New Hampshire, Temple @ Pittsburgh

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Rutgers @ [18] Nebraska

7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Michigan State @ [19] Minnesota

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Washington @ [16] Denver

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [25] Ohio State @ Iowa

Sunday, January 24

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – [21] Eastern Michigan, Illinois State @ Ball State

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [22] Cal, San Jose State @ [24] Stanford

Live blogging
I'll be here live blogging all the Friday slop as usual—get all your devices and alternate monitors and time machines ready because there will be periods when you want to watch three meets at the same time—as well as UCLA/Arizona on Saturday (but not Oregon State/Utah, just a heads up).  

Friday
-Most of the top teams are getting their meets out of the way on Friday, with only the major Pac-12 sides holding out until the weekend. Though the result is in doubt for very few of these meets, many of these teams are coming off nasties of varying severity in their most recent showings, so there are a couple key rotations to watch. Yeah, I'm talking about Georgia's beam. The SEC Network should definitely cut in to Florida/Auburn when Georgia is going on beam with a breaking news update because we all need to see that thing.

-The premier meet of the week is Florida's visit to Auburn because it features the highest-ranked underdog and because I haven't seen a full Auburn meet yet this season. My needs make things important. Florida is the heavy favorite in this one, with a fuller contingent of both starring 9.9s and supporting 9.8s that would have to thrown up a relative splatfest for Auburn to come out on top. The Gators turned in the strongest and most complete performance in the country so far this season in their last meet, though the scoring was crazy-pie, so part of the interest in this meet will be how similarly hit routines are scored away from home. It should be a better indicator of where Florida is at this point in the season.

Perhaps surprisingly, or not, the floor rotation is the biggest question for Florida so far this year, once again last weekend featuring three great routines and three weak routines. Bridgey will chug along and get into form eventually, but that is a lineup that looks a step behind where it could be given the quality of Baker, Sloan, and Boren. Right now, they're just missing that DLO from Wang or piked full-in from Spicer, or even the 9.850 that Boyce could bring in the first spot to make this a complete and dominant lineup 1-6. For a championship side, everyone in the floor lineup should be a possible 9.900. We've seen Florida, Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, etc. do that recently, but that's not the case for Florida right now. That wouldn't be a real problem until Super Six, because this floor lineup is still great, but it's something to keep in mind.

For Auburn, the first couple meets have been fine but not ideal. At this point, the team is still expecting to count some 9.7s and will need more time to develop routines from Krippner and Engler into 9.825-9.850 early-lineup options, rendering a 9.750 a drop-score rather than a phew-score. It will take more than a single January to get to that place, but those are the freshmen I'm watching with the biggest vulture-eyes in this meet. It has been encouraging to see Abby Milliet develop into a true and viable second-in-command to Atkinson on bars and beam (she even did floor last week). The question about Auburn this season is whether this will be a complete contending team or just the Caitlin Atkinson show, especially on bars and beam in the absence of Megan Walker. Milliet has already stepped up the quality from last year to fill that role.

The Weekend Plans – January 8-10

It's here! Wait, how do we do this again?

Top 25 Schedule

Friday, January 8

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Ball State @ [21] Kentucky

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [25] Central Michigan, UW-Whitewater, Winona State @ UW-Eau Claire

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [2] Florida @ Texas Woman’s

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – BYU @ [4] Utah

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Michigan State @ [18] Arizona

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [15] Illinois @ [23] Missouri

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [11]Nebraska, Bowling Green @ Arizona State

Saturday, January 9

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [9] Georgia @ [7] Michigan

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – NC State @ [17] Penn State

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [1] Oklahoma @ [5] LSU

7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Iowa State @ [20] Minnesota

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [24] Southern Utah, West Virginia @ [16] Denver

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [22] Ohio State @ Washington

Sunday, January 10

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [23] Missouri @ Lindenwood
5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [3] Alabama @ [6] UCLA

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Nor Cal Classic ([8] Stanford, [14] Cal, UC Davis. Sacramento State @ San Jose State)

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – [10] Auburn @ [12] Oregon State

As always, the full schedule is available at the link at the top. Note that Arkansas and Boise State will not be competing this weekend. 

FRIDAY

-Let the live blogging begin! I'll be here from the start, though there aren't any really enticing matchups on Friday (you're not even trying...), so I'll probably bop around from meet to meet, missing everything important. I do want to make sure to watch a fair chunk of Nebraska since we rarely get to see Nebraska during the season. Florida against TWU will be broadcast on Aunt Flogymnastics, so those of you watching it are required to provide updates of honesty in the comments. You have your mission.

-For Florida, this will be a very comfortable win, but as I mentioned in the preview, I'm looking forward to seeing the lineup strategy. I'll also be interested to find out where Peyton Ernst is at this point, how Alicia Boren does in her debut given how important she is to the team this year, and how many 10s Bridget Sloan gets. Over/under?

-There's a little less mystery about Utah because we saw them at the RRP and they diligently release their lineups a million days in advance. This too will be an easy-peasy meet, but we've got a lot of event debuts (Lee and Schwab on bars, Merrell and Partyka on beam and floor), which is always reason for a keen eye. Bars and floor are the most depleted since last season, so watch for stuck-at-9.825-itis, though that may be expected to some degree this early in the season. But, is there potential to go much higher?

-Speaking of depleted, Nebraska has a bunch of empty spots in these lineups, and depth will be a major storyline this season. I'm hoping to see as many different freshmen as possible competing to give the team more options than I currently think there are. Let's not make this not a six-AAers kind of season since that is the most nerve-wracking thing in the world. Someone find the bubble wrap. I'm also interested to see how Arizona State fills out these lineups, as in, can they? There are almost four people on the roster this season, but might it be a little less depressing than last year? A little?

 SATURDAY

 -Now that's more like it. We've got two fairly huge meets on Saturday, which overlap because, once again, pull it together everyone. 

-Georgia travels to Michigan to open the season, and this will be the first meet of the year that actually has an uncertain outcome. Michigan does enter as the favorite, however, competing at home and coming off an impressive first meet for a team that was in so many pieces so recently, but it's not open and shut. As we know, the Wolverines are still not a deep team and will need the exact competitors they showed in Cancun to be competitive with the best teams in the country this year. But now, after the Cancun success, it's 197 or bust. Anything less is a regression. 

#12 Oregon State Preview

Let the previews BEGIN! On the roster, I've noted which events the gymnasts normally compete for a quick glance at possible lineup choices.

Roster
Aufiero, Erika - Senior - VT, UB (capable of adding BB, maybe FX)
Colussi-Pelaez, Mariana - Freshman
Colussi-Pelaez, Silvia - Junior - UB, BB
Dessaints, Dani - Sophomore - VT, UB
Gardiner, Maddie - Junior - VT, UB, BB, FX
Jacobsen, Mary - Freshman 
Jimenez, Megan - Junior - VT, FX
Khamedoost, Shireen - Sophomore - UB
McMillan, Kaytianna - Junior - VT, UB, BB, FX
Perez, Risa - Senior - BB, FX (possible VT, did UB at ASU)
Radermacher, Jamie - Senior - FX
Ricci, Taylor - Junior - VT, FX
Singley, McKenna - Freshman
Yu, Elizabeth - Freshman 

Recent History
2015 - 12th
2014 - 13th
2013 - 16th
2012 - 12th
2011 - 8th
2010 - 8th

2016 Outlook
Oregon State crossed a significant hurdle last season by returning to nationals at a point when underperforming at important meets was becoming an unfortunate trend. This season, Oregon State should find itself in a similar position, squarely in the fight for a spot at nationals but with nothing guaranteed. It'll be another on-the-cusp season. Because of that, quite a bit will depend on other teams, particularly how well the likes Illinois and Arkansas end up performing, but Oregon State should be a reasonably 196.6 team this year once everything falls into place. The Beavs haven't lost too, too many crucial scores from last season, especially because Tang wasn't scoring at consistently the same level post-injury. Aside from Tang's beam and floor and Keeker's suddenly 9.9 vault, which will absolutely be missed, OSU lost a handful of 9.825s that should be easily replaceable with this roster.

Key Competitor 
Kaytianna McMillan. McMillian suffered a wild knee catastrophe on vault at regionals last year, rendering her unavailable for nationals (and walking) and effectively dashing any hope the team had for stirring up some trouble among the big girls. At this point, she's still in the comeback process, but having her contributing serious routines by the end of the season is a must for Oregon State. If it's just Maddie Gardiner with spot greatness from Aufiero and Perez, this will not be a particularly successful season. Those scores alone do not amount to enough to challenge. They need one more 9.9 leader across multiple events, and it looks like it needs to be McMillan. If she joins the other big contributors and they're all going strong by the end of the season, picking the Beavs to make it back to nationals becomes a much more comfortable prospect.

Vault


Vault has not been a traditional strength for Oregon State, usually lacking the power and difficulty of the top teams and forcing the Beavs to hang out closer to the 49.2s than teams cracking the top 10 should be. That concern could be exacerbated this year with the new start values, since Oregon State does look to be vaulting primarily fulls. If they're not pristine fulls, the gap widens. The newbie Mary Jacobsen may then be a serious asset because word on the street from the cool kids (you know how people on the street corner are always talking about vault lineups?) is that Jacobsen will be vaulting a Tsuk full, which still has a 10.0 SV. McMillan also possesses great power and did a 1.5 in JO, but after multiple years of serious leg traumas, it's more important just to get her back vaulting something at some point rather than pushing the difficulty.

Other fulls from Aufiero and Gardiner will certainly return to the lineup and usually (usually) feature comfortable, minimal-deduction landings. Both have gone 9.900 for those vaults, so while that may translate down to 9.850 this year, they will still be valuable. Ideally, McMillan, Aufiero, Gardiner, and Jacobsen will be the vaulting core. When those four are together, expect competitive scores and something that can break out of the 49.2 doldrums. When the second-tier vaulters (Jimenez, Dessaints, Ricci, perhaps Singley) have to jump in and contribute significant routines, that total is probably dropping down toward the 49.1s since they're more likely to hang around 9.800. That puts quite a bit of pressure on the other events to keep the team competitive.

Bars


For my money, Erika Aufiero's bars routine is the most important performance on the team this year.  When she sticks that DLO, it's pretty much a guaranteed 9.900 (unless she arches a handstand like in the video above—come on, youtube!). On a roster without any other true bars sorceresses, hers will be an essential weekly score because if she doesn't get it, who else will? There are other definite lineup returners like Gardiner, SCP, and McMillan, all of whom are solid enough on bars, but they're solid for 9.825s, not 9.9+s. They have supporting routines rather than lineup-defining routines and wouldn't be enough to protect the team against those 9.7s that cropped up too often last season.

Freshman Notes: UCLA, Auburn, and the Rest

One last batch of freshman notes here for all your perusing/fantasy gym needs. After this, we'll still have the coaches poll to look forward to, which is released annually at half past whenever-they-damn-please. That should be some fun nonsense carrying on the grand middle school tradition of ranking people based on their reputations. But for now, there's still the UCLA Medical Center/part-time gymnastics program to break down.

UCLA
Worried. That's where we'll start. UCLA is coming off an 85%-dismal performance at Nationals last season and is now without Dr. Sam Peszek, PhD in bailing your asses out at every turn. The losses from last season don't amount to all that many routines, but those were extremely valuable routines for both their scores and, more importantly, Peszek's reliability and consistency. Dare I say, calm confidence. (Put a dollar in the "calm confidence" jar.)

Even though most UCLA fans will be waiting for next season when the Ross/Kocian wagon pulls up to the curb and expectations will be much higher, this year's freshman class is exceptionally talented, though sadly also the usual amount of already-in-several-pieces-on-the-floor. We'll start with Macy Toronjo, who is out with a shoulder injury. Because of course she is. That's particularly disheartening news for the Bruins because she's such an ideal NCAA gymnast, with strong basics, precision, and elite skill set across four events. Second-tier elites, the golden fleece of NCAA gym. She would have been relied on in the all-around, and certainly will be in the future. Even in JO, she showed both a DLO and full-in on floor, and nailed the crap out of them along with definitively not-awful dance elements that scored an a million. It would do the same in NCAA.



She brings the same comfort level on both acro and dance elements to beam and has a perfectly fine full on vault that she has done for actually ever. Bars can get iffy sometimes in the handstands and legs, but she performs a Ray and has strong amplitude in release elements that should absolutely become something real. Because so many of the other UCLA pieces are in the beautiful-fragile-inconsistent category, like a SYTYCD performance about broken marionettes to the tune of "Fix You," she'll need to be the constant, reliable one when she comes back.



So, with Toronjo currently on the sidelines, let's focus on that paragon of sturdy physical well-being, Katelyn Ohashi. Remember 2.5 years ago when she was absolutely going to the Olympics? Times change, and injuries change. Ohashi is obviously a glorious gymnast, the most talented entering NCAA this year, but she's a different gymnast now than she was as an elite. Her JO performances in 2015 were encouraging as to her new potential as an NCAA gymnast, but the main questions are how healthy she is and how healthy she'll be able to stay for an NCAA career after being used up and broken in elite. Will her shoulders just get thrown on the pile with the rest of them?

The biggest takeaway from Ohashi's more recent performances is that beam is back. She has maintained impressive difficulty and looks more confident without the burden of that layout full.



She'll need to slot into the Peszek role in the famous Francis-Lee-Peszek triumvirate of beam wonderfulness, as that's still UCLA's greatest asset compared to other teams. She can absolutely be another walking 10. She also has the pike full-in back on floor, and while she downgraded to a full on vault, it's a high and comfortable full. At some point, if they feel they can risk it, she could work the difficulty back up to something 10.0. Now, bars. There was a time last quad when Ohashi was a good bars worker and everyone died about her jaeger every minute of the year, before she was torn asunder in 2013 by introducing those E pirouetting elements she couldn't do. She didn't compete bars during the 2015 comeback, but let's hope she can get her groove back eventually. 

National Championship Preview Part 2: A Relaxing Evening at Nationals?

The two semifinals could not set up more differently in concept. We have that tangled mess of a first semifinal where anything and everything could and will happen, and then we have this one, which seems almost upsetting in its straightforwardness. Picking Oklahoma, LSU, and Alabama to advance over Auburn, Nebraska, and Oregon State is just way too obvious. So it can't actually happen, right? In a year where the top twelve seeds all advanced from regionals, I think college gymnastics owes it to us to make this semifinal more exciting than I think it's going to be.

But, considering the results and scoring potential of the top three teams, I do think it's going to take a major mistake to make any of them vulnerable. In terms of their qualification fights, the most fall-likely areas (ahem, beam) should be the biggest focus, but when it comes to a potential rematch the next day in Super Six, all of these teams have concerns of vague-to-severe magnitude. So let's get into it.

OKLAHOMA


Among the many assets Oklahoma can boast, one of the most important is stability. This team doesn't really fall. Of all the twelve schools going to nationals, it would be the most surprising to see the Sooners count a fall, which is why I would count them as the safest bet to make Super Six. They don't have to be excellent in the semifinal to make it through, just the normal level of solid. Like all of the other top teams, Oklahoma was good-not-great at regionals, but they did still manage to record the best score in the country. A repeat of that performance would be more than enough.

As for Super Six, Oklahoma is a solid bet to win, but I don't think either Oklahoma or Florida can claim to be the favorite going in. It's not that kind of year. Both have issues that still need to be addressed, and neither has put together what I would consider an unstoppable performance yet. Oklahoma has not had major issues in the same way Florida did on beam at SECs or LSU has lately on bars. The Oklahoma problems are less "I'm afraid you're going to get a 9.6" and more "I'm afraid you're going to get a 9.825." But in Super Six, those problems take on the same importance. If a major player gets a 9.825, she might as well be getting a 9.6. Or a 1.

Oklahoma's biggest trouble spot has been bars. Over the last five consecutive meets, Oklahoma's lowest score has come on bars each time. I didn't necessarily see that coming before the season. With the addition of Dowell to replace Spears, and the rest of the lineup staying identical, I thought it would be a smooth transition on bars this season. But, there is some risk in the Dowell routine with the DLO 1/1 dismount (it's really easy not to stick that thing and suddenly be at 9.875-9.900 while the rest of the bars anchors in the competition are at 9.950), and there have been enough small issues throughout the lineup with landings and angles to allow the scores to fall down to 9.850 for people who should be getting 9.900. Everyone in that bars lineup is capable of 9.900, so having zero 9.9s at regionals is a problem, even with the relatively tight bars scoring at that meet. I suppose this shouldn't be as surprising as I think it is because the exact same thing happened last season. Oklahoma was suddenly getting weird 49.1s on bars and didn't really work out the problem until Super Six, when the bars sticks finally showed up again. They'll hope for an identical development this year. Maybe a day earlier this time?

The beam lineup is not a problem. It's extremely reliable both for hits and for huge scores (though my one criticism is too many gainer full dismounts, which you know I hate because it makes great routines end with a whimper and seem pedestrian). I was also pleased to see Ali Jackson nail her 1.5 on vault at regionals because that's a stick they'll desperately need if they're going to keep pace with the Florida vaulters, who keep getting 9.950s for non-stuck vaults. Those Oklahoma 1.5s have to be at least at the same level. Most teams have been in the "we're not really sticking yet" phase on vault, so for the teams who look like easy qualification bets, the stick fight on vault may be the most interesting part of the semifinal. We don't really know who will have the edge there going into Super Six yet.

But now I'm going to say something controversial. It almost hurts to say it, but it may be time to take Chayse Capps out of the floor lineup. OK, I got it out. Now we can work through it as a group. Obviously, the performance is wonderful. That's not in doubt, but the tumbling and the scores have not followed. Another 9.775 at regionals. That lineup can seriously get close to a 49.6 and be a real asset in Super Six, but if they have an opening 9.775-9.800, that means everyone else has to have the perfect routine. It's a conundrum.

LSU


LSU has let off the gas a little bit as the season wears down. For almost the entire year, LSU looked like an equal third challenger with Oklahoma and Florida in the fight for the title, scoring 198s and coming up with big wins over Florida and Alabama. But lately, the performances haven't been quite as convincing. LSU finished 2nd at SECs after it appeared Florida handed them the competition on a platter, and then they went into regionals and recorded a 197.175 with a clinic on tightness on bars and beam. LSU still has the quality to win the title, but recent showings have seemed a clear and significant step below championship level.

The Tigers do come into the semifinal as a very comfortable pick to make Super Six, but if there's a competition as to which of the three top seeds seems the most likely to be upset, LSU has suddenly moved to the top of that list. At regionals, they finished just 0.225 ahead of a Nebraska team that likewise didn't have anything resembling an all-time best performance, and that margin should be bigger. It's way too close for comfort heading to Friday.

Norman Regional Preview

It begins. Just one week until the best day of the college gymnastics year. It finally starts to matter! Over the next few days, I'll be going through each of the regionals and breaking down the main things to watch for in each competition as we bite our fingernails and giggle like unhinged death-row inmates about who is going to advance to nationals. I'll begin with the top-seeded Oklahoma Sooners and their home regional, which will begin at 5:00 ET/2:00 PT on Saturday.

Competing teams (starting event)
[1] Oklahoma (bars)
[12] Oregon State (bye before bars)
[13] Penn State (beam)
[22] Southern Utah (bye before floor)
[27] Missouri (vault)
[34] NC State (floor)

Competing individuals are from Lindenwood (Valeri Ingui - AA; Kierstin Sokolowski - AA; Courtney Heise - bars), Arizona State (Taylor Allex - AA; Natasha Sundby - floor), Illinois-Chicago (Gabrielle May - AA), SEMO (Ashley Thomas - AA), Northern Illinois (Amanda Stepp - vault), and Illinois State (Sami King - beam).

Oklahoma


It's a significant milestone for Oklahoma to come in as the #1 seed, breaking Florida's four-year streak of being the #1 overall regionals seed, but I'm not going to spend too much time on Oklahoma right now. There will be plenty of opportunity for that once the nationals previews roll around because if Oklahoma were to be eliminated at this point, it would be one of the biggest upsets ever at regionals. The #1 team, undefeated, competing at home? Come on. They would have to count at least a couple falls. Probably 20.

As often happens at regionals, the best teams get sort of overlooked on the day, especially if a rotation and a half goes by and they're already ahead by a million tenths and clearly going to win, which I pretty much expect to happen here. The focus tends to turn to the real battles to make nationals, but there are still a couple areas in Oklahoma's performances to keep half an eye on with nationals in mind, particularly cleaning up some of those bars handstands from last weekend and continuing to hone those vault landings that I've been harping on lately. Unlike Oklahoma teams of a few years ago, this team should not be in a position to give up any ground to any other team on vault (they were at home and got a 49.4 last weekend, while LSU and Florida were away getting 49.5 and 49.6). To keep pace on vault this year, it's not about stepping for 9.900. It's about having multiple 9.950s. Because you better believe Sloan, Hunter, and McMurtry can not-stick for 9.950. That's the pace that's being set that every other team has to match. 

Oregon State and Penn State


But let's get to the real stuff. This regional is about Oregon State and Penn State in what should be one of the most entertaining showdowns next Saturday. I expect it to go back and forth all afternoon. These two teams were in the exact same position last year, coming into regionals as the #12 and #13 teams and fighting it out for the second spot, with Penn State ultimately coming out on top by two tenths, making it to nationals for just the second time in the last decade. That also marked the second-straight year that Oregon State failed to make nationals, and is exactly what makes regionals so important for the Beavs this year. They have to make it. Three years of missing nationals? Not acceptable for a team that really should be part of the top tier but is on the verge of losing that status. It was only a few years ago (in 2011) that Oregon State finished the regular season as the #3 team in the country, seemed an easy bet to make Super Six, and was even some people's cool, alternative sleeper pick to win. That's gone now.

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. 

The Weekend Ahead – February 27th-March 2nd

Red alert. There are just three weeks left in the regular season. How does this always happen? The preseason is a million centuries long. Fortunately, in these last three weeks until conference championships, the meets are packing in an acceptable amount of value. Especially this Friday, with another juicy slate of SEC meets and an interloping Pac-12 match-up between Utah and Oregon State that's particularly interesting as Oregon State tries to position itself for Regionals. As we move into this part of the season, the meets involving the teams ranked 11-14 become some of the most important as those teams try to claw over each other to avoid a bad Regional placement. 1/12/13 is the death Regional, the most likely Regional for a team to hit the meet and not advance, as Oregon State did—relatively—last year (196.525) and Auburn did the year before (196.700).

In the rankings, Oklahoma is set at #1 for another week, but LSU can get pretty close with a great showing. Oklahoma's ranking lead has been very, very safe for a number of weeks, but they'll have to start turning things up now to make sure it stays that way. LSU has a 196.600 road score to get rid of, so they should be able to remain out of the reach of Florida and Utah in the #2 spot with a hit meet. With a 196.725 still to be dropped, Utah is in a similarly solid position to jump up in RQS, but to do it, they have to prove they can get the road scores. They have just the one great road score so far (@ Arizona) and will need several more to challenge the big girls. It will be a little harder for Florida to move up, but they're at home, so you never know. If the Gators get another one of those home 198s, they can shake things up if LSU and Utah are just OK tomorrow.

Alabama, Michigan, and Auburn are all at home and all unlikely to change their RQS significantly, but Auburn's position is the most vulnerable right now. With three solid home scores already, Auburn will not be able to increase RQS too much even with a great meet. However the trailing teams—Nebraska, Georgia, and UCLA—all have sub-196 scores (sub-195 in the case of UCLA) that they're itching to get rid of this weekend. All three have to potential to jump ahead of Auburn with regular, solid performances. The bottom half of the top 10 may be the area of greatest flux this weekend. 



Friday's action begins with Florida going after that massive home score against Kentucky, but the two most interesting meets of the day will be Georgia/Auburn and LSU/Alabama. Auburn has been getting the scores and zooming up the rankings the last few weeks, but are they really ready to jump into the top half of the SEC and unseat a perennial (the perennial) power? We'll find out. As with all Georgia meets this year, beam and floor will be the deciders. While I favor Georgia on both vault and bars—if Georgia doesn't have a healthy lead at the halfway point, it's bad news—Auburn has been the stronger beam team over the last month. Megan Walker has quietly emerged as one of the best beamers in the country, and she has a family of supporting 9.875s behind her from Atkinson, Demers, and Guy. Beam is the event where they can pounce. Georgia has its own crop of exceptionally talented beam workers, but the wobble goblins are a bigger worry. Even during last week's season high, they had one really great hit from Box (and solid work from Babalis), but it was not a confident or clean rotation overall.

But really, this meet for Georgia is all about the floor. They have to recover from that garbage rotation last week. If they don't, none of the other apparatuses will matter. That Georgia floor is the rotation I'm most excited for this weekend. The time to work through problems has already run out. We're going into March now, the month to perfect details, not learn how to hit.



Overlapping that meet will be the LSU/Alabama clash, which is more important for Alabama than it is for LSU. Sure, LSU would love to pick up a juicy score and put the pressure on Oklahoma in the rankings, but right now the Tigers are in a fairly comfortable position both numerically and qualitatively. Alabama has been making a lot of progress over the last couple weeks to get those competitive 197s. They're up to a season-high ranking now, but they're still on the outside of that top flight of teams. A win over LSU, coupled with a win over Florida earlier this year, would mean they should be in the title conversation, not just the Super Six conversation. Of course, both of those meets are at home (March 6th in Missouri should be a good opportunity to gauge how Alabama looks at a less enthusiastic, more conservatively judged road meet), but another win would still be significant. There's also the matter of the home winning streak to deal with, and all.

The issue for Alabama in this meet is that, so far this season, the two teams have showed similar strengths with LSU just a tad better in each department. If Alabama is going to win in a hit meet from both teams, they'll need to stick more vault landings than LSU (and more than they did in Georgia) and be more precise with the bars landings as well. LSU looked very nice on bars last week, but they were shuffling and stepping and twitching just ever so slightly. If Alabama brings those blamo Alabama bars sticks from years past, they may pick up ground. It would also help if LSU has one of those bad floor landings meets, but they seemed to exorcise that demon last week. Almost entirely.

As mentioned, a few of the Pac-12 teams have some important scores to get, not just Oregon State and UCLA, but Stanford as well. With few meets left, Stanford has some 195s they have to get rid of now. Price and Vaculik are working their way back at just the right time to help the team put together some real meets, which is very much the Stanford way of going about things. You don't have to get 196s until March. Also keep an eye on Minnesota. They're moving on up. They had a beamtastrophe in their most recent meet (and that event remains a worry), but they're starting to put consistent 49 rotations together on the other piece. With even a regular lower-midish 196 this weekend, they can start to put pressure on Stanford, Oregon State and Penn State and make the 11-14 zone just that much more threatening.

Top 25 Schedule
Friday, February 27

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [25] Kentucky @ [3] Florida

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [1] Oklahoma @ [16] Illinois

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [9] Georgia @ [7] Auburn

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [23] Missouri @ [17] Arkansas   
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [2] LSU @ [5] Alabama

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [18] Denver, Utah State @ [21] Southern Utah

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – BYU @ [15] Boise State

10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [4] Utah @ [12] Oregon State

10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [24] Iowa, Central Michigan, Sacramento State @ UC Davis

Saturday, February 28

2:00 ET/11:00 PT – [10] UCLA @ Arizona State
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – NC State @ [6] Michigan
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Iowa State, Penn, Brockport @ [13] Penn State

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – New Hampshire @ [14] Minnesota

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [19] Cal @ [20] Arizona

Sunday, March 1

3:00 ET/12:00 PT – [16] Illinois, San Jose @ [8] Nebraska

Monday, March 2

10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [22] Washington @ [11] Stanford

University Park, PA Regional Preview

This marks our first weekend without gymnastics since December. What are we even supposed to do with ourselves? Socialize with people? About things? Address responsibilities? Guh. Incorrect. Instead, let's emotionally prepare ourselves for next Saturday, my favorite day of the gymnastics year, by breaking down each regional. Good idea? I think so. I'll begin with the #1 seed Florida Gators and the Penn State Regional beginning at 4ET/1PT.

Competing teams (starting event)
[1] Florida (bye before bars)
[12] Oregon State (bye before floor)
[15] Penn State (vault)
[23] New Hampshire (floor)
[29] Kentucky (bars)
[35] Maryland (beam)

Competing individuals are from Brown (Diana Walters, Caroline Morant, Michelle Schnayder), Pittsburgh (Brittney Harris, Maebelle Pacheco - vault, Katie O'Rourke - beam and floor), Bridgeport (Lissette La Fex), and Cornell (Melanie Jorgensen - bars).

The Favorite


Another year, another #1 Florida team. The 2014 season marks the fourth consecutive time Florida has entered regionals as the #1 overall team in the country. Aside from the near-disaster beamtastrophe in 2011 after which the team just barely squeaked through by .025, Florida has worn the #1 crown comfortably at regionals, and this competition should be no exception. Sure, I could try to concoct possible scenarios where Florida counts 11 beam falls and gets into trouble, but that's a waste. The Gators should advance by a hefty margin and probably won't garner that much attention on the day. We'll all be too focused on the legitimate, clawing fights for nationals spots.

There will be plenty of time to talk about Florida in the weeks leading up to nationals, but I still have an area or two I want to keep an eye on as we gauge whether the Gators can repeat as champions, especially coming off the loss at SECs. Florida didn't have huge problems in that competition, but they showed some ragged qualities and uncharacteristic mistakes here and there that indicated a step down in quality from the stellar performances they had leading up to SECs. Claire Boyce falling on a rudi, Bridgey going OOB in the deciding routine, a couple lackluster landings on beam dismounts, these were unexpected errors, but not trends. It's not really a thing until it happens again. But, if there's one area I do want to watch for Florida at regionals, it's vault and the progression of those landings. They're still missing sticks and giving away tenths in most of those routines, and that's been happening fairly frequently.

Now, we saw the exact same thing last year, with Florida looking predominately blah in the vault landing department at SECs and then bringing themselves into line after that. By Super Six, Florida had far and away the best vault landings of any team. They should pull things together again this year, but this Florida vault team is not as strong as last year's group, so it will be interesting to see if they can progress in the same way. They can't be in a position of giving up multiple tenths to Alabama and LSU on vault like they did at SECs. 

But really, let's get to the main story of this regional.

Pac-12 Championship Preview

It's time for the Pac-12 Championship once again, that annual clash of teams who are really proud of their floor choreography and probably won't peak until June, and as has been the case for the last couple seasons, we enter the competition without a dominant favorite. Utah comes in as the top seed, with UCLA close behind, and Stanford and Oregon State nipping at them a few places back in the rankings. This event has featured some upsets in recent years, and it's easy to envision a back-and-forth affair with multiple lead changes where all four top teams at least pretend to be in the hunt for a while. Utah and UCLA have been the bigger scorers this season and therefore seem the likely favorites, but I don't expect the competition to be as clear cut as that. We have seen Oregon State save its best gymnastics for Pac-12s several times in the last few years, and Stanford often makes a sudden, late, unexpected charge during the postseason. It's going to be a competitive session.

But here's something dumb: This year, because Cal is hosting the event and elected to be in the evening session, these four favorite teams will be competing in the afternoon session, while the bottom four teams (Cal, Arizona, Arizona State, and Washington) will be competing in the evening session. Yes, this is counter-intuitive and bizarre. Or, as Greg Marsden said, "It’s complete lunacy. It’s just really stupid." Correct. Hole in one, Marsden.

I'll be at the meet, and I expect it to be exceptionally anticlimactic in that second session when the title has already been decided hours before and everyone is just waiting around for these 9.750s to finish, like in a marathon when the stragglers finally stumble across the finish line well after night has fallen. Good for them for finishing, but everyone already tuned out after the medals were awarded.

It's one of those short-sighted decisions that tends to occur a lot in NCAA gymnastics that are made solely with the immediate arena in mind (the hope of dragging in 11 more Cal fans in the evening session) at the expense of being broadcast-friendly or running a serious sporting event in a sane and exciting way.

Still, regardless of when the top seeds compete, it should be a close one. I was going to say "good one." We hope it's a good one. It could also be a mess. But I don't expect a runaway regardless, so let's break this thing down by event.

Vault:


If Utah is going to win the Pac-12 Championship for the first time, it will be achieved on the strength of vault. There is no other team in the Pac-12 within two tenths of the Utes in RQS on this event, and they have recorded each of the top five vault rotation scores in the conference this season. Because the other events will be less cut and dry, Utah will want to fulfill the prophecy of RQS and build up something in the vicinity of a two-tenth advantage here, which is doable. None of the other teams have three vaulters as strong as Delaney, Wilson, and Dabritz, so if Utah is to take that big advantage on vault, they're going to need 9.950s from their final three, which we have seen from time of time this season. But, to get those scores at Pac-12s, they're going to need a couple more sticks than they have shown the past few weeks. You can never expect a 9.950 for a non-stick, especially in a postseason scenario. It happens, but you can't expect it if you're bouncing back on the landing.

Dabritz has downgraded back to the Yfull, which was expected. I'm actually surprised we saw as much of the 1.5 as we did, but Utah tends to revert back to safety in routine composition (which is also why we never see the Dabritz comaneci). It's kind of disappointing because I like to see the 1.5, but on the other hand she's more likely to stick the full. Though the decision really only pays off if she does stick, otherwise it's quite hard for her full to score higher than Delaney's and Wilson's and build the scores to the end of the rotation. (If it were me, I'd have Dabritz doing the Y1.5 in the fourth position in the lineup, ready to bump up the scores for the cleaner landings from Wilson and Delaney to follow. I always like difficulty building to cleanliness as a lineup strategy.) 

The rest of vault is a bit of a mixed bag. UCLA has the biggest scorers of the rest of the group in Peszek and Courtney, who can both get 9.950 and will need it to make up for some of the landings we've seen at the beginning of this lineup. If UCLA can manage some 9.825s or 9.850s from Pinches and Mossett along with a hit from Bynum, who has been up and down, they should be in good shape. When the Bruins beat Utah on vault two weeks ago in Ann Arbor, the Bynum hit was a huge factor in that, but then she went and fell last weekend. Cameo performances from Michigan Sadiqua and January Sawa wouldn't go amiss in keeping the Bruins competitive.

Saturday Pac-12 Meets – Oregon State @ Utah, Stanford @ UCLA

We have double Pac-12 duty tonight, with two (sort of) simultaneous meets to get through, both of which should provide a satisfying level of intrigue in both the rankings picture and the "can you hit beam?" picture.

We'll start with Oregon State and Utah, which can be viewed on the Pac-12 Network beginning at 8:00 ET/5:00 PT. Oregon State currently sits in a somewhat precarious RQS position, especially where road scores are concerned, so tonight is an opportunity to give themselves a serious dose of help. The Beavers are currently ranked 11th, and have lower-ranked teams like Minnesota nipping at them with solid mid 196s already this weekend. No team wants to finish ranked in those 11-14 places, resulting in a tough Regionals assignment with multiple other realistic contenders.

UCLA is another team needing a breakthrough performance, and I've beaten that horse enough already this year, so I'll just say that allegedly Danusia is returning tonight, which has the potential to make everything better.



I know I mentioned that I would like these videos to just be Val, which is still true, but Randy Lane.

[14] Oregon State @ [6] UCLA Live Blog

UCLA home meets used to be on Sundays at 2, but now with the advantage of live TV broadcasts, we have to get accustomed to Saturday and Sunday night meets. I'm absolutely in favor. The meets feel like more of an event this way, bookending the weekend. In the past, meet weekends would start with a bang with all the competitions on Friday night, and then sort of putter to a finish with a smattering of occasional live streams. Now, there's a second bang.

Plus, it seems to be helping UCLA's attendance. Last season's one live Saturday night meet brought by far the Bruins' highest attendance of the year, and last weekend's night meet against Florida had 5265 fans, a significant improvement on last year's season average of just over 4000.

It has been an interesting/strange weekend so far. After Oklahoma's opening 197.700 heard round the gymternet, it seemed inevitable that scores would continue to skyrocket, but all the top teams have struggled to put together four complete events this weekend. Even Georgia, the Week 2 leader with 197.175, had a ragged beam rotation. Florida also broke 197, but Alaina Johnson got a 9.725 on bars, so what are we even supposed to do with that? Utah was well on the way to the best score of the weekend until a beam fall in the final routine brought them back to the 196s, and Alabama was a walking 9.7 yesterday. None of the top teams have managed a complete meet so far this weekend. January.

Let's see what UCLA and Oregon State can do about that. The meet begins at 9 ET, 6 PT on the Pac-12 Network. Or, if you don't get the Pac-12 Network, you can always just get out some crayons and parchment and draw a picture of what you think might have happened. Or a dragon. Whatever.

#12 Oregon State Preview

We have the coaches poll, we have our intrasquad videos, we have everything we need to be ready for the season to begin. So, all that remains now is to put together team previews. Over the next couple weeks, I'll be going through each of the teams in the top 12 of the coaches poll, walking through every event and giving some overall impressions of what to expect this season.

For Oregon State, it was the days of being high and low in 2013. The Beavs began the year with a shocking performance in Cancun that seemed to confirm all of the fears we observers had for them going into the season, but by March they had willed themselves into becoming a 197 team. They were the only team to show up at Pac-12s ready to hit and cruised to a title. But then, in the span of about ten minutes, all that hope came crashing to the ground like so many busted DLOs when three falls on bars obliterated their season in the first rotation of Regionals.

Oregon State was probably the 8th or 9th best team in the country last year all things considered, and the nasty taste of that Regionals performance partially accounts for why both the coaches and I put them down at #12 for the moment, but much of my trepidation also comes from this being a second straight year of losing two top gymnasts. The old guard (Leslie Mak, Olivia Vivian, Makayla Stambaugh, Melanie Jones, and even Laura-Ann Chong and Mandi Rodriguez if we want to go back a little farther), the group that made a national impact and that we associate with the recent strength of Oregon State, is officially gone.

In its place, we're left with a returning squad of supporting actresses, a gaggle of 9.850s, and much of Oregon State's story in 2014 will be a journey to find those leading ladies again. Keep a close eye on how the freshmen are contributing in the early months, because this year's big, talented incoming class provides the opportunity for rebirth and for new stars to emerge. We won't really know how well OSU can do this year until we see what they bring.

Vault:


The fortune of fortunes for the Beavers on vault is Kelsi Blalock being granted a 5th year. She is the star vaulter for this team and the only consistently huge score among the returning gymnasts. She gets excellent distance on her yfull, and while a slight pike at the end is the main thing keeping her from 10s, she sticks well, so the 9.950s should come and 9.900 should be the expectation.