Saturday Live Blog – Georgia @ Utah; Big Five

Saturday, March 12

12:00 ET/9:00 PT – Cornell @ West Chester
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Big Five Meet #1: Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Rutgers @ Penn State - SCORES - TV: Big Ten Network
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Bridgeport @ Pennsylvania

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Big Five Meet #2: Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan State, Maryland @ Ohio State - SCORES - BTN2Go (login)
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Northern Illinois @ Bowling Green - SCORES 

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Temple, S. Connecticut, Rhode Island @ Brown

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Georgia @ Utah - SCORES - TV: Pac-12 Network

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – LSU, Oregon State, New Hampshire @ Texas Woman’s - SCORES - Flog($)

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Ball State @ NC State - SCORES - Stream

9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Denver, Seattle Pacific @ Washington - SCORES - Stream

Getting started early today with the first of two Big Five qualifying meets. The one that's on TV. The other one isn't. Earlier, I said BTN was dumb. Turns out, I'm dumb. I thought BTN was showing an old meet between Nebraska and Penn State after this instead of the second Big Five meet, but they're actually showing a men's meet between Nebraska and Penn State. Which is also tape delayed. So not better. And in my defense...

 

 

Saturday and Sunday Meets

For Saturday and Sunday, I probably won't be doing much of the normal routine-by-routine live blogging (save that for Monday, when I'll be all over it), but I'll be popping in and out watching bits of things over the two days and will keep this post here for some basic reactions and impressions as needed. Feel free to use the comments to communicate all your feelings/profanities/side-eyes/insane commentator quotes/crack-smoking-judge reports from whatever you're watching. I'd love to know what I'm missing. We're all in this together. We can get through NCAA gym as a family.

Saturday, January 16

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Illinois @ Rutgers
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Brown, Springfield, Ithaca @ Southern Connecticut

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Ursinus @ Brockport

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Cortland, Rhode Island @ West Chester

3:00 ET/12:00 PT – Hamline, UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Crosse @ UW-Oshkosh

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Ohio State @ Michigan

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Nebraska @ Penn State

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Maryland @ Minnesota

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Illinois-Chicago @ Northern Illinois

8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Ozone Classic (Iowa State, Pittsburgh, SEMO, Air Force)

Sunday, January 17

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green @ Western Michigan

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Towson @ Ball State

1:00 ET/10:00 PT – North Carolina, Penn, Cornell, Temple @ George Washington

2:00 ET/11:00 PT – Arizona @ Texas Woman’s

3:00 ET/12:00 PT – Oklahoma @ Arkansas

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Alabama vs. Auburn (Birmingham, AL)

4:00 ET/1:00 PT – New Hampshire @ West Virginia

The Rutgers/Illinois feed was going Rutgers-only for the first half of the meet (it's also fun when they cut away from a floor routine to show a judge just doing some judging), but I'm still slightly appalled that a team with Horth, Kato, and O'Connor all going on bars can keep scoring a 2. Those are three would-be 9.9s. I picked Illinois to have a big year before the season started, and I'm sticking to it. The pace at halfway is still an improvement on last week, though. Ish. This will not be a usable score for Rutgers after a bars rotation in which every single person fell on a gienger. Did I spy with my little eye a Mustafina dismount, though? You go, Rutgers.

Athens, GA Regional Preview

Now here we are old friends, the final regional. It feels like a long road already, and the meets haven't started yet. Georgia will host a regional for the second time in the last four years, and once again it's the 6/7/18 group (and the third time in four years that Georgia has been in the 6/7/18 regional). The Gym Dogs will welcome Michigan to town to engage in a possible head-to-head nationals preview in one of the earlier starts (4 ET/1 PT).

Competing teams (starting event)
[6] Georgia (bye before bars)
[7] Michigan (bye before floor)
[18] Central Michigan (vault)
[22] Ohio State (floor)
[28] NC State (bars)
[32] Rutgers (beam)

The individuals in this regional are from West Virginia (Hope Sloanhoffer, Nicolette Swoboda, Alexa Goldberg - bars, Beth Deal - beam), North Carolina (Haley Watts), William & Mary (Brittany Stover), and George Washington (Kayla Carto, Chelsea Raineri - vault, floor).

The Favorites


Of all the regionals, I would deem this the least likely to see an upset, which means it will definitely happen. Georgia and Michigan have performed several steps above the other teams in this competition all year, and the season averages for both teams are higher than the season highs for any of the other schools competing. It would take a confluence of disaster from one end and unexpected greatness from the other to make this one interesting as an upset affair.

But that doesn't mean it isn't interesting. If everything goes to form, we can expect Georgia and Michigan to advance from this competition and meet again in two weeks with a spot in Super Six on the line, so the performances will have significant implications heading into nationals. And it's too close to call right now as to which team is better. Georgia has been more consistent this season and is competing at home, but Michigan has the higher peak score and put in a stronger performance at conference championships. If they're both hitting, they should be fighting it out right to the final rotation.

Unfortunately, injuries are going to be a talking point for both teams. Georgia had to sit Brittany Rogers on vault and floor at SECs after an ankle injury (edit: and she'll miss those events at regionals as well - thanks for the confirmation), and reaching their highest scoring potential requires her at 100% in the AA. While her injury allowed for the emergence of Lauren Johnson on vault with her sudden 9.975 (making lineup order a bit more challenging), they're not as strong without Rogers' 1.5 on an event where they need to squeeze out as much of an advantage as possible. Floor, however, may be Rogers' most important routine this season because of her difficulty and because the Gym Dogs don't have the depth without her. Having to drop Broussard's 9.4 made it impossible for them to keep pace at SECs because they were counting two other 9.7s. In this meet, floor is already an event where Michigan looks to have a solid edge, so Georgia can't count those same 9.7s or they'll be giving up too many tenths to the Wolverines.