10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [10] Boise State @ San Jose State
Saturday, February 13
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [5] LSU @ [11] Georgia
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Penn State @ [23] Ohio State
5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Iowa @ [20] Illinois
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Southern Connecticut @ [22] New Hampshire
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Washington @ [6] Utah
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [13] Stanford @ Arizona
11:00 ET/8:00 PT – [16] Oregon State @ [7] UCLA
Sunday, February 14
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – [25] Kentucky, Lindenwood, Kent State @ Ball
State
2:00 ET/11:00 PT – Michigan State @ [3] Michigan
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [24] West Virginia @ [4] Alabama
Monday, February 15
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [19] Cal @ Arizona State
Live blogging
Friday as usual, probably with special attention to the Perfect 10 Challenge since I've seen so much of the SEC this year and less of Denver and GW. Saturday is also sort of making Friday look like an idiot this week, so I'll be all over that with LSU/Georgia and then again later for the glut of Pac-12 action. It'll get crazy. Sit back and let the insanity wash over you like a fine breeze or the knowledge of your own insignificance.
Friday
-The most competitive meets on Friday will probably end up being Missouri/Kentucky and Minnesota/Nebraska. The higher-ranked team will be favored in both, but upset potential exists. I'm particularly curious to see how Missouri fares away from home after that unexpectedly huge score last weekend. The next away meet is always the best test of how realistic home scores are.
-Among the big girls, Alabama against Auburn is the showcase on Friday. Apparently, this is kind of a rivalry or something, but in spite of meeting three times last season and this already being the second meeting of 2016, Auburn is still yet to record a victory against Alabama since turning good. At home and coming off a season-high, this is the best chance they'll have. That said, Alabama should win the meet and is the better team on every event, but that doesn't mean it will be a blowout. The Tide has displayed inconsistency this season, and while there haven't been any implosions since the loss to Arkansas, counting medium mistakes or weak landings has become commonplace, including on two of the four events in the last meet. Relying on those mistakes will be Auburn's hope.
Alabama has two meets this weekend, so I wouldn't necessarily expect to get any answers about postseason lineups quite yet. Dana has been jumbling people all over the place and will likely do the same this time in order to keep everyone relatively rested and avoid over-pressing the fragile ones. I would bet on more depth exploration for the time being.
We should also be on Beers Watch 2016, not just because it's important to start drinking during beam but because even though Lauren Beers has competed a remarkable amount for someone who spent the preseason in several pieces in a shoebox, she has been very up-and-down, occasionally starting to look like herself and then immediately falling a bunch of times. How much will they push her in a double-meet weekend, and will we see GoodBeers or DarthBeers?
Oklahoma takes over the #1 ranking this week. That seemed unlikely heading in, but the Sooners managed to pour some 197.9 all over the NCAA as Chayse Capps suddenly became the most important all-arounder in your life, while Florida had a late-meet nasty and lost to Georgia. Georgia. With Georgia beam.
Our regal 10.000 of the week comes courtesy of Capps, because of course it does. Finally. You can see the video of her beam 10 on Aunt Flo, but it's behind the iron subscription curtain. So otherwise, just imagine every other beam routine you've seen Chayse Capps do, and it's that. Just a 10 this time. And with a walkover to scale.
In other big routine news, NastiaFan101 posted Sophina the diva's floor routine and got it trending all over faceplace and the information superhighway. Hero's work. It's almost like social media is a tool that can be used to attract attention to the sport, or something. Teams should definitely continue not taking advantage of that at all and waiting for fans to do the work for them.
Love. Exciting. Beautiful. Fun and crowd-pleasing without being a joke. Though it will be interesting to see what it scores away from home given factors like whatever is happening after that switch ring. Or, knowing UCLA and the health situation and the Sophina being in the floor lineup situation, we'll never see this routine ever again. RIP, Hallie Mossett's feet.
This is why it has been frustrating to spend three seasons watching Sophina actively not making the floor lineup. Because she's capable of this. Her performance elevates the lineup, and when we have DeJesus and Mossett going at the same time (ever?), it will start to feel like a classic, thrilling UCLA floor rotation of years ago. Even Cipra, whose routine is not my taste, moves quite well and performs with style. It's encouraging to see that this year for a team that, especially in the couple seasons post-McCullough and EHH, had to keep the best dancers out of the lineup in favor of tumblers who could get the scores but didn't really want to have to dance about it, when it was all Pritchett and Courtney and Zam. (Stop freaking out, I love the Zam, but she never really looked thrilled at the idea of doing these routines.)
Ah, Utah and UCLA. One of my favorites. The unfortunate aspect of this rivalry over the last three seasons has been the road team throwing up an utter catastrophe on bars in the first rotation, deciding the meet and dulling any kind of competitive excitement after about three minutes of gymnastics before anyone has time to get interested. This is supposed be a close, back-and-forth affair (it's Utah and UCLA), but we haven't had that for a while, so...here's hoping. No one is allowed to have a catastrophe until at least beam.
Today's pre-meet discussion topic is Angi Cipra's floor routine, which now that we've seen it four or five times, is taking on a new identity where the theme is the continued emotional bullying of Angi Cipra. Why do people keep hanging up on her so much? Prank calls are just mean, you guys. Does she have no friends? Do we have a clique problem at this school? She keeps being like, "Who's calling me?????" and every time the whole team is like, "I don't know..." Dicks. Don't worry, Angi. It gets better.
Another Friday, another batch of exciting SEC meets. The real question is, now that the 10s have started flying again, who's getting the first 10 of the Florida/Georgia meet: Brandie Jay on vault or Bridget Sloan on bars? Or will Sloan beat the odds and get a pre-meet 10 for just being so great.
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.
That Florida gymnastics isn't marketing a shirt that says, "On Fridays, we get 10s" is ludicrous. Verging on lyyyyyudicrous. Florida's meet was the closest to a postseason-level performance we've seen so far this year (closest, but not there by any means), and now the Gators lead the rankings by a big, heaping margin this week with that 687.900 (because of Florida at home), highlighted by a "yeah, I'm down with that" 10.000 for Bridget Sloan on beam, a "squint...but also that Dos Santos" 10.000 for Kennedy Baker on floor, and a "Bahahahaha" 10.000 for Alex McMurtry on bars. At least she has a same-bar release this year.
Kathy is not OK with these piked giants. The judges are. The interesting thing is that McMurtry gets a heaping load of side-eye for this bars routine every time because she gets such high scores, but if she were going, say, 2nd or 3rd in the lineup and getting a 9.850 for this routine, we would be standing up and applauding for how much she has improved on bars from her Level 10 career, when she was getting 8s for hit routines. Compare her 10.000 to this routine from the Nastia in 2013, which scored 8.925, uninspiring even by JO scoring standards. Improvements, clearly.
But let's be honest, the biggest difference between 2013 and 2016 is going 6th in a Florida lineup. Many of the factors that got her an 8.925 remain, hence the saltiness about this 10.
And now Baker and Sloan.
Kennedy Baker is like, "This is the seventh-best floor routine I've done at Florida, and this is the 10?"
