On Friday, keep an eye on Florida and Georgia. As the major home teams, they will be expected to lead the way with scoring this weekend. This year, scoring under 197 at home is a loss for the top teams, which means that there is such pressure to keep pace, even when teams should be comfortable competing at home. You can’t count a fall for 196.400 and expect to remain at the front of the conversation.
Alabama finally converted last week for a huge 197.725 to bring the team up to #2. Much like we were saying with Florida last week, it is necessary to maintain the momentum this week on the road and not suffer a letdown. Bars will be the rotation to watch because these gymnasts need to get out of the 9.825 funk. (I’d also like to see a little more contribution from the freshmen. Kayla Williams has been a non-factor so far.)
UCLA and Oklahoma are at USAG meets this Friday, so it may be difficult to get the kind of live scores we’re used to. UCLA will be providing updates via twitter. Not exactly ideal…..
On Sunday, Utah is visiting Arizona State. I haven’t tried out the live streams for the Arizona State meets this year, but we’ll give it a whirl for a live blog for that meet to watch how Utah carries this momentum on the road.
Top 25 Schedule:
Friday – 2/10/12
7:00 ET / 4:00 PT – [2] Alabama @ Kentucky
7:00 ET / 4:00 PT – [14] LSU @ [4] Florida
7:00 ET / 4:00 PT – [23] Iowa @ [11] Ohio State
7:30 ET / 4:30 PT – [3] Arkansas @ [6] Georgia
8:00 ET / 5:00 PT – Perfect 10 Challenge ([5] Oklahoma, Iowa State, SEMO)
8:30 ET / 5:30 PT – IGI Chicago Style ([7] UCLA, [15] Boise State, [18] Missouri, [19] Illinois)
9:00 ET / 6:00 PT – [17] Denver @ BYU
10:00 ET / 7:00 PT – [9] Oregon State, Sacramento State @ UC Davis
10:00 ET / 7:00 PT – [25] Arizona State @ [16] Arizona
Saturday – 2/11/12
7:00 ET / 4:00 PT – [20] Washington, [22] Michigan, Southern Utah @ [8] Nebraska
7:00 ET / 4:00 PT – [10] Penn State, William & Mary, George Washington @[21] NC State
Sunday – 2/12/12
2:00 ET / 11:00 PT – [11] Ohio State, [13] Auburn, Ball State @ [24] West Virginia
4:00 ET / 1:00 PT – [1] Utah @ [25] Arizona State
5:00 ET / 2:00 PT – [12] Stanford @ California