2016: A Season That Happened

Another NCAA season has come and gone, but our aggressive sighing from the corner of the room will live on forever. They may take our season, but they will never take our eye rolls.

Several days on from Oklahoma toe pointing off into the sunset with a trophy in hand, this seems an appropriate moment to cobble together a series of reflections and important frowns relating to the season just passed and college gymnastics in general. Only eight and a half months until it starts all over again! But, of course, we also have that pitiful little zone meet called the Olympics coming up not nearly soon enough, so I'll be all over the elite action this year with the same level of dedicated preposterousness I usually reserve NCAA. You guys, we have a lot more things to break. At the time, I didn't quite realize what a good job we did breaking Romania last year, but...it definitely took.



That Frogchenko 2/3ish is my new favorite vault. It's going to start from a 10.0 in next year's NCAA code. Cal is already training two of them.

Oklahoma
For the second time, and the first time outright, our champions are the Oklahoma Sooners, who were rewarded for their commitment to performing the cleanest gymnastics in the competition. Super Six wasn't a perfect meet for the Sooners by any means, which is what made it exciting in the first place (a season-best hit from Oklahoma, and this thing isn't very close). Weaker showings on vault and the second half of bars kept the competition finely poised, but Oklahoma's errors were less egregious than those of the other teams and did not include any falls. Focus on details like split and chest positions made it much more difficult for the judges to deny Oklahoma those valuable 9.9s in a theoretically tighter-scored environment, and the Sooner managed to snatch twelve of them. Seven was the most 9.9s coming from any other team in Super Six. 

My questions about Oklahoma's title chances coming into the season primarily revolved around the necessity of replacing valuable 9.9 routines on bars and beam with gymnasts who were already on the roster but not making those lineups, often a recipe for regression. While Oklahoma did have to replace a number of those lost routines with tired old sophomores and juniors, the coaching staff was able to get Oklahoma-level routines out of each them. Ali Jackson doing bars? Chayse Capps getting her best scores on bars? What life if this? I went back to my notes about the freshmen from when Capps started, which I still have because I'm a gymnastics hoarder, and I wrote "Capps - VT, BB, FX. Bars - No." So there's that. I also wrote, "beam could be one of her potential contributions." Could be? Potential? You unbelievable idiot.



This is one of the defining characteristics of the Oklahoma team. People compete events no one ever expected them to compete when they started, from Hollie Vise doing a vault her senior year to all these competitors this season. And while I wouldn't consider these bars and beam lineups all-time great Oklahoma lineups, they more than got the job done. 

Other teams also used gymnasts who weren't making lineups in previous seasons, whether it's McLaughlin and Fassbender filling in on floor for Florida or Sanders doing beam for Alabama, but those routines were the replacement-level 9.825 scores we would expect from someone on the cusp of the lineup. They didn't become difference makers in the way that Oklahoma's replacement routines did, a critical factor in the Sooners' triumph.

The year of the upstarts
Some solid noise was made this season by teams we don't normally expect to do anything. Eastern Michigan came, you know, sort of close to making nationals, George Washington broke into the big girls club, and Bowling Green made regionals, not to mention Cal crashing the party of the normal nationals qualifiers, Iowa sneaking into the realm of contenders, and Boise State and Denver spending some serious time in the first tier.

The storylines were different. There were different teams to follow than usual, which is exciting. But that's all a little too positive, isn't it? If some teams break in, others have to fall out and perform worse than is expected or acceptable. The biggest disappointment of the season was Illinois, a team that appeared to have the talent to make its traditional biennial nationals appearance but was clearly well off the pace even before devastating injuries sealed the season. Ohio State has also completely disappeared from the conversation since a nationals appearance several years ago that shouldn't really have been as random and fluky and Kent Statey as it has become in retrospect. Then there's also Penn State and...well...that whole abuse thing. And DOCTOR Rene Lyst being asked to sashay away from Arizona State, a program that was good as recently as 10 years ago and is now the punchline of the NCAA. 

In a somewhat different category are Oregon State and Arkansas, two teams that had perfectly fine  and respectable seasons and might have made nationals with a kinder regionals draw, in the case of Oregon State (Oregon State was the only school that had to face two eventual Super Six teams at regionals), or without some critical injuries, in the case of Arkansas. Still, this makes three straight years of missing nationals for Arkansas and three of the last four for Oregon State, both programs that at this point should expect to make nationals every time.

The presence of these upstarts puts more and more pressure on the top teams to be better during the regular season so that they don't end up with those very challenging regionals draws, which is positive because it makes the regular season mean more. Stanford did not have an impressive regular season and was a whisker away from being unseeded at regionals, which would have produced an even more challenging setup. For a team that currently has only three home meets a year, several of which are in a glorified black box theater, the incentive to make regular-season meets a more invigorating and successful experience grows stronger.

Scoring the rotation order
Another significant characteristic of the season, perhaps the most extreme, was the presence of the fifth event, Home Floor. Home Floor is the phenomenon in which a host team goes to floor in the final rotation only to find that the code of points has suddenly been replaced with a rainbow lollipop made of panda hearts. Home floor has always been a thing, but this year, floor scoring reached a ten-year high, rendering the effects of home floor more pronounced than ever. If you were a top team who didn't get 49.500 on floor at home, you might as well be counting 80 falls.

So, end-of-meet scoring is a problem, and one that's not simply confined to floor and home meets. At nationals, we also saw the effects of scoring the rotation order and elevating scores based on when the routine came in the meet. In Super Six, the average team score per rotation was 49.206 in the first rotation, 49.2375 in the second, 49.369 in the third, 49.225 in the fourth, 49.350 in the fifth, and then suddenly 49.500 in the final rotation. The highest team score on each apparatus in Super Six was recorded by the team that happened to be competing on it in the final rotation. Of the 37 scores of 9.9 or greater given out in Super Six, 23 came in the second half of the meet compared to 14 in the first half of the meet. As many 9.9s were given out in the final rotation as in the first three rotations combined. Amazing how all the teams got to perform on their best events in the second half of the meet. What a coincidence.

The rotation order should be random nothing. It shouldn't decide the scores, and finishing on a bye (or not starting on a bye) should not be an actual disadvantage in the competition the way it appears to be now. It's a judge's job not to get excited by the circumstances of the meet (which is why smiling should be banned forever—it reads as unprofessional), and judges need to be made aware of tendencies to elevate scores at the ends of meets. They must make a point of judging the first routine of the first rotation with the same lens as the sixth routine of the sixth rotation and repel the natural instinct to loosen and elevate scores as the meet becomes louder, longer, and more exciting, not allowing themselves to be swayed by the siren song of fervent cheering and a passionate atmosphere. They're not here to enjoy this. They're here on business.

Week 7 Rankings and RQS Update

The week's newest members of the 10 club:


Bonus points for originality. Yea or nay?


Cut to Brittani McCullough and Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs: "And I never got a 10 on floor?" 

Week 7 Rankings (GymInfo)
1. LSU – 197.470
Week 7: 197.625
Week 7 leaders: AA - Courville 39.675; VT - Courville, Jordan 9.950; UB - Courville, Morrison 9.950; BB - Jordan 9.925; FX - Hall 9.925

RQS:
Road Score 1: 197.875
Road Score 2: 197.650
Road Score 3: 197.625
Road/Home Score 1: 197.650
Road/Home Score 2: 197.225
Road/Home Score 3: 197.200

It's a historic ranking and historic RQS for the Tigers, who cannot be excluded from any attempt to construct the possible title contenders this season. Plus, they can realistically go much higher in RQS based on what we've seen so far and with those two home 197.2s still counting. Florida's epic 197.840 RQS from last season seems perhaps a bridge too far, but LSU (and all the top 3) can challenge. 

Note, however, that neither Oklahoma nor Florida are currently guaranteed to count anything under a 198, while LSU is guaranteed to count two 197s. There's much work to do if they want to hang onto #1 for any length of time.

2. Oklahoma – 197.405
Week 7: 197.200
Week 7 leaders: AA - None; VT - Scaman 9.900; UB - Spears 9.875; BB - Clark 9.925; FX - Scaman 9.925

RQS:
Road Score 1: 198.175
Road Score 2: 197.575
Road Score 3: 197.225
Road/Home Score 1: 197.700
Road/Home Score 2: 197.325
Road/Home Score 3: 197.200

Both Oklahoma and LSU will be at home this weekend and both will have a 197.200 as the low score to drop, which means Oklahoma can move ahead by going at least 197.550 this weekend AND outscoring LSU by at least 0.350. A tough task, but possible.

3. Florida – 197.365
Week 7: 198.125
Week 7 leaders: AA - Sloan 39.700; VT - Hunter 10.000; UB - Johnson 9.925; BB - Sloan 9.950; FX - Hunter 9.975

RQS:
Road Score 1: 197.175
Road Score 2: 197.075
Road Score 3: 196.650
Road/Home Score 1: 198.125
Road/Home Score 2: 198.050
Road/Home Score 3: 197.875

Florida had the misfortune of beating LSU and falling in the rankings because of the (relatively) deficient road scores counting for RQS. They'll have the opportunity to bump that score up this weekend in the extra-anticipated showdown in Alabama. The Gators can tie LSU's current RQS with only a 197.175 this weekend (and then obviously would have to score higher if LSU and Oklahoma also increase their RQSs), but that means that if all three teams score a 197.200, for instance, Florida becomes #1.

4. Alabama – 197.140
Week 7: 197.100
Week 7 leaders: AA - Milliner 39.525; VT - Milliner 9.975; UB - Jacob 9.875; BB - Jacob 9.900; FX - Milliner 9.900

RQS:
Road Score 1: 197.500
Road Score 2: 197.100
Road Score 3: 196.825
Road/Home Score 1: 197.500
Road/Home Score 2: 197.150
Road/Home Score 3: 197.125

Alabama dropped its one flaccid road score this weekend to leapfrog Utah, at least for the moment. But with just one road meet remaining, they're already guaranteed to count a 197.100, which means it will be a major challenge to move up any higher than 4th unless they can start balancing it out with 198s at home as Florida is doing. 

5. Utah – 197.015
Week 7: 197.575
Week 7 leaders: AA - Dabritz 39.625; VT - Delaney, Wilson 9.950; UB - Dabritz 9.950; BB - Lofgren 9.925; FX - Damianova 9.900

RQS:
Road Score 1: 197.200
Road Score 2: 196.875
Road Score 3: 196.300
Road/Home Score 1: 197.825
Road/Home Score 2: 197.575
Road/Home Score 3: 197.125

Similarly, Utah looks pretty healthy in the home score department but will have some pressure to get rid of those 196s in the remaining two road meets to get any higher in the rankings. And one of those road meets is at Michigan. I know the specter of "Michigan scoring" isn't really a thing anymore, but still, no opponent has scored a 197 at Michigan since 2011. At the same time, a lot of "no one has scored [blank] since . . . " have been broken already in 2014, the year of the 10.   

Land of the Rising Scores

You know that rainy Saturday feeling when you just want to put on your floor exercise music Pandora station and kick back with some data entry? No? Anyone? OK. Deal with it anyway.

I've addressed the trend of drastically rising scores in NCAA before (at least weekly), but this should be a somewhat more complete assessment. For each of the last 15 years of NCAA competition, I averaged the team scores of the top 36 teams (regular season) to arrive at a single number to indicate the average score for that season, at least for the higher-level teams. Knowing as I do how much you all love graphs, I have plotted them to display the results:

The 2004 season is still unparalleled in being the land of 198s, but as is made obvious in the scores, a significant adjustment was made after that season. It has been a gradual ascent, but scores have now all but returned to the levels from 2004, with 2013 ranking as the second-highest scoring season of the last 15. What's been happening over the last couple of years interests me the most since it's happening right now, so let's focus specifically on that chunk of the graph:

On Home Scoring, the Elite Kind

The official motto of the American gymternet is Illos numeros inter gentes numquam accipiet. (She'll never receive those scores internationally.)

Over the years, we've all seen any number of hilarious scores showered upon US gymnasts at domestic competitions, and this storied history of ridiculing hyper-American judging has cultivated the widespread assumption that less biased international judges would never succumb to such silliness.

At times in the past, this has been the case, but in the last few years, the international judges have seemed willing to evaluate the execution of routines with that we would normally consider an American lens. Has the "she will never receive those scores internationally" argument become a knee-jerk response to perceived overscoring without a strong correlation to fact? Will she probably receive those scores internationally as well?

Those are my questions, at least. So, as a way of reintroducing myself to the elite world, which at this point has been [scene missing] ever since the Olympics, I compared the execution scores given to the US team members in 2011 and 2012 at Classic/Championships/Trials with the scores they would later receive at Worlds/Olympics. (I went back no further than 2011 because I don't have the D/E breakdown for 2010 TF and AA and 2009 AA.) I threw out routines with falls and major mistakes, since they would skew the execution score in a misleading direction. This is about the evaluation of essentially equivalent routines, not comparing falls to hits. Certainly, there are differences in the actual quality of all routines (a wobble or two here, no wobbles there), but those issues should even out between the two sets of competitions, providing an overall reliable sense of how the judges are evaluating American performances.