Regionals Live Blog: The Day That Matters

Watch the bubble teams like Stanford today. They need a little more of this and a little less "Why are we getting a 9.675?"

After a whole regular season of "We just have to focus on ourselves" and "Results don't matter" and "We might as well be competing in a uni-meet, and let's pretend that's not insane," it's very refreshing to arrive at the day when hitting is finally a thing that people need to do. Today, they are consequences. Today, individual narratives about personal improvement and stepping up to help the team fall away in favor of actual competition between programs where it doesn't matter if you've improved by a tenth over last season if you can't turn it into a victory.

Do any of the seeds have a strong chance of going down? Absolutely, but I feel less confident about that than I did in February. Early in the season, it appeared certain that there was enough depth throughout the country to ensure that a clear twelve would not emerge. Now, with the exception of the 12/13 fight, it will take a mistake for the top seeds to go away, but mistakes are what today is all about. They make everything more interesting, and things often get crazy at regionals. We can only hope.

All the links you could ever need are available in the previous post. 

Regional Championships - Links and Scoresheets

I'll have the blog for the regionals themselves up a bit later, but for now, might I interest you in a series of vaguely discolored, underlined words for you to click on?

For each regional below, you will find links to the live scoring, live video, and scoresheets of my own creation. If you're a certain type of person (the best type), you may enjoy having a scoresheet to print out or reference during the meet with presumed lineups and easy RQS comparison.

Every year (but this year seemingly more than most) guessing lineups is based on little more than tea-leaf reading, and they will certainly differ from the actual lineups. I usually used the most recent competition lineup except in cases where teams have new injuries/are trying to get people back, like Florida. With Johnson coming back on an indeterminate number of events and Stageberg out with a dislocated shoulder, there will be some changes, and your guess is as good as mine as to where the new people come in.

5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Norman Regional 
[2] Oklahoma, [11] Stanford, [14] Penn State, [22] Washington, [27] Iowa, [34] Southern Utah
Live scores (Ooh, a fancy new look. Maybe it will update more than once an hour this time since this is a special occasion.)
Live video
Scoresheet

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Columbus Regional
[6] UCLA, [7] LSU, [18] Arizona, [20] Ohio State, [24] Central Michigan, [31] NC State
Live scores
Live vault video
Live bars video
Live beam video
Live floor video (On a scale of 1 to 10, how embarrassing is it that they've used the Oklahoma logo on these video links for Ohio State?)
Scoresheet

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Gainesville Regional
[1] Florida, [12] Minnesota, [13] Auburn, [24] Maryland, [29] Bridgeport, [36] Pittsburgh
Live scores
Live video
Scoresheet

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Morgantown Regional
[5] Michigan, [8] Nebraska, [17] Illinois, [19] Kentucky, [26] West Virginia, [35] North Carolina
Live scores
Live vault/floor video
Live bars/beam video
Scoresheet

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Tuscaloosa Regional
[3] Alabama, [9] Utah, [15] Denver, [23] Kent State, [30] BYU, [35] Iowa State
Live scores
Live video
Scoresheet

7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Corvallis Regional
[4] Georgia, [10] Oregon State, [16] Arkansas, [21] Boise State, [28] Arizona State, [32] California
Live scores
Live video
Scoresheet

Columbus Regional Preview

We're nearly there. During a frantic five-hour period tomorrow, everything we need to know about nationals will be decided. I'll be there for every moment, of course, and since it will be impossible to keep and eye on everything at the same time, I hope you all will help keep everyone updated. One final regional to preview before the chatter ends and things start getting good.

Competing teams (starting event):
[6] UCLA (vault)
[7] LSU (bye before bars)
[18] Arizona (bye before floor)
[20] Ohio State (floor)
[24] Central Michigan (bars)
[31] NC State (beam)

The Favorites
By all logic, this should be a straightforward meet in which UCLA and LSU advance to nationals as the indisputably strongest teams, but of all the regionals, I feel the least confident about how this one will play out. It smells dangerous.



UCLA enters as the higher seed, but it could very well go either way between the two. If they both hit to capability, the meet will come down to minor details, but if that's the case, it won't matter because they will both be swimming through to the next round. This year's Bruins are rather more well-rounded than teams of recent years, while LSU is a terror on vault and floor and quite a degree more nerve-wracking and 9.7ish on bars and beam. In that way, this is similar to the Minnesota/Auburn contest in Gainesville but on a larger scale. I trust UCLA more to hit (it's an odd sentence, I know), but LSU will have the bigger rotations.

Morgantown Regional Preview

The final few regionals don't have clear favorites for the win, but because of the seeding system, they do have clear favorites for the nationals spots. There is not yet enough parity for teams outside the top 15 to expect to challenge for nationals without a gift from a higher-ranked team.

Competing teams (starting event):
[5] Michigan (vault)
[8] Nebraska (bye before bars)
[17] Illinois (bye before floor)
[19] Kentucky (floor)
[26] West Virginia (bars)
[33] North Carolina (beam)

The Favorites


Michigan had the landings together this year well before any of the other teams, which accounted for the very high ranking at the beginning of the season. As the other teams caught up in presenting finished routines, they also caught up in RQS. As a result of both that and two consecutive average performances, the Wolverines are perhaps slightly undervalued coming into regionals. This is still a high 197 team that would potentially project into the 198s were it not for beam.

Corvallis Regional Preview

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

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

The Favorites


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

Tuscaloosa Regional Preview

Alabama hosts our third regional, which begins at 6:00 CT, so it will be one of the last to finish. Unfortunately, I don't expect it to be that close, but if it is, at least it won't be overshadowed by all six meets going on at the same time.

Rotation order (starting event):
[3] Alabama (vault)
[9] Utah (bye before bars)
[15] Denver (bye before floor)
[23] Kent State (floor)
[30] BYU (bars)
[35] Iowa State (beam)

The Favorites


The tale grows a bit dull as we head into a third regional of the same, but Alabama, like Florida and Oklahoma, is about as locked as a lock can be to advance out of regionals. That's what happens when the top seeds host. It becomes that much less likely that they will even finish second let alone be upset. In the future, the NCAA should avoid selecting all the best schools to host in the same year.

Alabama has been surging and will feel quite pleased about finishing only one tenth (before penalty) behind Florida at SECs while competing without Ashley Sledge. The vaults are crazy powerful, and with the landings improving each week, the event is becoming an easy 49.500. There are individual blips here and there in the beam and floor rotations but nothing that would account for any fundamental disadvantage to Florida.

Norman Regional Preview

[Yes, I originally wrote "Normal Regional Preview" because I am amazing.]

Oklahoma hosts the second regional, which features Stanford and Penn State as the seeded contenders and Washington, Iowa, and Southern Utah as the whippersnappers. This will be first meet to begin (5 ET/2 PT), so we should all get a good look at these teams before the madness begins.

Rotation order (starting event):
[2] Oklahoma (vault)
[11] Stanford (bye before bars)
[14] Penn State (bye before floor)
[22] Washington (floor)
[27] Iowa (bars)
[34] Southern Utah (beam)

The Favorite:


The Oklahoma Sooners enter regionals as the #2 seed for the second consecutive year but boast a much healthier crop of gymnasts this time. Last year, Oklahoma was forced to hobble to the finish with a slapped together roster (I'm pretty sure at least one member of the vault lineup was just a roll of masking tape), but the harrowing injury to Kayla Nowak during preseason appears to have scared off whatever Babylonian trickster god was plaguing the team. The only major issue since has been Keeley Kmieciak's tonsillectomy, and she is expected to return shortly.