After the depressing, injury-plagued slog that was the 2012 season, Michigan’s 2013 saw a return to form for a team that should easily be top 10 in the nation every season. In fact, the Wolverines wholly exceeded expectations last year. I was optimistic that they would return to Nationals in comfortable fashion, but they came quite close to making Super Six and, in the much tougher semifinal, would have been right in it with UCLA and Oklahoma for those last spots if not for a rough beam adventure (and we’ll get there in a minute).

Eight routines from Zurales, Martinez, and Colbert have been lost since last year, and we can expect newcomers Talia Chiarelli and Nicole Artz to step into most of those roles, competing on a couple events each. Bev Plocki has also been touting increased contribution from Austin Sheppard this season to fill a few of those eight openings as well. When Brooke Parker transferred from Alabama, it appeared she was actually going to get to compete now, but at least so far she has been right back in the “great depth for our team” category.

Michigan in 2014 is still on the smaller side, relying on a few key stars, but most of the team members are believable on multiple events, so they can still be 9 and 10 deep on a couple of the apparatuses and shouldn’t have to struggle to find enough 9.8 routines in the way we have seen at times over the last couple years. Much of that depth comes from the big senior class, which occasionally makes up half of the event lineups, so there is some urgency for this team to do something special this season while they still can. Let’s explore a bit further.

Vault:

Vault was regularly very impressive for Michigan last year, the prime area that carried them to momentary #1 and put them consistently in the top 5. The Wolverines finished the year ranked #4 on vault as the top non-SEC team.

The scoring leaders were Joanna Sampson and Austin Sheppard, who both brought in frequent 9.9s with huge power and height on their yfulls, and we can expect them to be 5th and 6th in the lineup this year for similar scores. Sachi Sugiyama is a bit more frequently down in the 9.825 area than the other two because the landing on the 1.5 can be so much more challenging, but she is also a great vaulter who can and will get 9.900 at times during the season. Natalie Beilstein is the fourth I’m mentioning, but she would be anchoring many teams. Ditto about the landing on the 1.5. Nonetheless, for all four of these vaulters, 9.850 is a weak score. They will each expect much better than that every time out and can lead the team to 49.400. 

The one concern about keeping pace with last year’s 49.435 RQS is the loss of Katie Zurales, who was regularly another of those 9.875-9.900 sisters on this event. This is where Talia Chiarelli can be a significant asset. She has that big Brestyan’s vaulting and performed a DTY as an elite. Her vault at the exhibition meet wasn’t as strong as I was expecting (she had an ankle injury and was a bit behind in training), but she should be there eventually. For the final spot, there are several options this year: Zakharia, Miele, Parker, Casanova, Artz. At least one will be able to come in for at least an establishing 9.800 at the beginning of the lineup, so matching last year’s scoring is a distinct possibility here.

Bars:

The loss of last year’s seniors makes the bars situation a bit tougher than on vault because Zurales and Martinez were such strong scorers, the #2 and #3 workers for the team in 2013. Without them, Sampson will be expected to get the consistent 9.9s to lead Michigan out of the low 49s, which is quite possible because her mix of big power and clean handstands is candy in NCAA.

Fortunately, there’s still room for optimism about keeping pace with last season’s high 49.3s because Michigan has proven quite adept at conjuring bars routines from thin air. Last season, Natalie Beilstein was suddenly good at bars for high 9.8s, and now Austin Sheppard, who wasn’t in the bars mix last year, is looking lineup likely with her colossal piked tkatchev. If these bars upstarts can perform in the 9.875 range, Michigan can use this event to gain on some of the other teams that rely more on vault and floor for their scores. That’s a big if, but even if they can’t get those scores, there should be some protection in the form of three other lineup members who have been reliably 9.850, Gies, Miele, and Sugiyama. I expect that to be the six (though I was pleased by the potential Nicole Artz showed in the exhibition in a clean routine), so as long as they’re in the lineup each week, I can see 49.300.  

Beam:

OK, here we go. If you’re looking to make an argument against Michigan making Super Six in 2014, may I present beam. It was the clear weak event last season, and even though they didn’t count falls, they counted a lot of 9.7s and often scored in that 49.000-49.100 territory, which won’t cut it in an environment where the top teams are putting up meets in the high 197s. High 197s are not possible with a lower-scoring event, and the Michigan situation gets more stressful considering the exit of the team’s best beamer, Katie Zurales, the one who could get 9.9s.

At the preseason exhibition, the beam concerns picked up right where they left off. It was a wobble fest. Though Sampson was among the prime wobblers, we should expect big things from her on beam this year. She absolutely must get 9.9s because she’s the one who can. There will be a lot of pressure on her routine to carry the rotation. Shelby Gies is also quite pretty here and usually hits for 9.850s, and I’d like to see her graduate from the first spot to get perhaps some higher scores.

The pleasant surprise from the exhibition was Talia Chiarelli with by far the solidest performance on the team. Watching her beam as an elite wasn’t always a safe viewing experience, so if she can become a hitter in college, it will go a long way to saving the event. Beyond those three, if you can hit a routine, welcome aboard. Annette Miele stepped up her consistency game for the most part last year for 9.825s, so expect her back, and Nicole Artz has some potential here (and has trained an interesting switch split + front full dismount). Zakharia, Sheppard, Casanova, and Williams will also be in the hunt, but we’re probably hoping for medium, 9.800 scores there. Beam will lag behind the other events with far fewer 9.9s, but the ability to pull out even just a 49.250 here could help make the season. There is plenty of potentially delightful beam work on this team, but I fear the wobble monster to an intense degree.

Floor:

On a much happier note, floor was already a strong even for Michigan last season, and it’s the place where the team has the most potential for improvement over 2013. In the returning category, Joanna Sampson is now a national champion and can 9.950 all over the place on this event with her humongous DLO, and she’ll be supported by her royal court of Zakharia, Beilstein, and Sugiyama, all of whom can be expected to score greater than 9.850 on a regular basis. That’s all most teams could ask for in a floor rotation, but Michigan is also adding several more high-potential options, all mounting with E passes.

Nicole Artz brings a piked full in and a pleasant mix of flexibility, height, and controlled tumbling; Austin Sheppard is introducing her big power to all the events now, not just vault; Chiarelli has a double arabian and should be in the mix here in time; and we could see action from Brooke Parker as well. At the exhibition, I was impressed and surprised overall by how far along the floor routines looked. There didn’t seem to be many endurance issues, and the team presented lots of big, exciting options for the lineup. Expect 49.400s.

Outlook:
If it weren’t for beam, I would happily be predicting Michigan into Super Six because the Wolverines appear to be a top 5 team across three events. They are still my pick to win the Big Ten title and could certainly still be one of those top six teams at Nationals because, judging by the strength on vault and floor and the potential on bars, they can score comfortably into the 197s even if beam is a 49.000.

It’s if beam goes negative that the real challenge begins, and it should be the prime event to watch this year for most of Michigan’s ranking peers as well. Beam wasn’t exactly a strength for LSU or Utah in 2013 either, so even if Michigan isn’t getting huge scores there, if they’re besting LSU and Utah, that could be good enough. Beam scoring between those three teams will be a fun side story to watch this year.

Regardless, Michigan should easily make Nationals and be at least on the cusp of Super Six. A finish anywhere between 4th and 8th seems perfectly realistic.

Big applause for Elizabeth Grimsley for putting together this intrasquad highlight video, including athlete IDs.

The first year of the Durante era must be deemed an unqualified success. The 2013 season was all about returning to Super Six for the first time P.S. (Post Suzanne), and the team accomplished that goal comfortably. They weren’t strong enough to finish higher than 6th (and some downright weird scores in S6 didn’t help anything), but they made it there. Durante also managed to squeeze career-best seasons out of Christa Tanella and Shayla Worley, both of whom I had certainly already written off, and got the team performing up to the potential of its roster in a way it hadn’t done in years.

Now comes challenge #2: Maintaining the same level when the smart money says a sophomore slump is coming. The team has lost Worley, Tanella, and Noel Couch, a class with a high pedigree (even if it didn’t always show), and is now bringing in an unheralded collection of Level 10s with far, far less expected of them. Losing some scoring potential compared to last year seems likely, at least on paper, so finding a way to get the same quality of out this group will be the goal of the season and will define not only the course of 2014 but potentially the years to come. As we learned during the recent verbal exodus, Georgia will not be getting too many big-name elites any time soon, so getting top scores out this kind of class will be Georgia’s route to success in the near future.

Vault:

The silver lining of the fact that Worley and Tanella weren’t getting anywhere near vault even if it were made of Championships, and that Couch was off the event most of last season with injury, is that the vault lineup from 2013 remains almost entirely intact. We should see very little fluctuation in either the competition order or the scoring. The team’s RQS last season was exactly 49.400, and with the excellence of Rogers, Cheek, and Jay vaulting at the end of that lineup again, something around 49.4s should be very attainable again this year.

Chelsea Davis is also exceptionally valuable to this lineup. She doesn’t get the big distance that would merit the back of the rotation, but she is quite clean and sticks regularly. Cat Hires had some travails with her vault last season, but she worked it out by the end, and I would expect her right back in the same place this year as well. There is an opening for either Morgan Reynolds or Ashlyn Broussard to take that sixth spot (I’ll give the edge to Broussard), and we could see Sarah Persinger pop back in as well. That’s eight solid options of 9.8 or greater, and I foresee this as Georgia’s strongest scoring event in 2014.

Bars:

Georgia managed to get along quite well last year on bars even post-Ding and Nuccio, with Davis and Rogers emerging as worthy successors to those thrones. We regularly saw a 9.875 for Rogers and a 9.950 for Davis, and that’s enough to be competitive with nearly every other team in those final bars spots. Davis has changed her dismount to a DLO, so we’ll have to wait and see if her stick rate remains as high, though it looks good enough so far.

Lindsey Cheek and Brandie Jay were good for 9.850s last year and almost surely will return to the lineup, but after that, two new routines will need to be found to replace Worley and Tanella. Since otherwise helpful contributors like Earls and Persinger don’t do bars, there is not exactly as surplus of options. Kiera Brown has an excellent tkatchev, so she seems the most likely choice since it would be unbecoming of Georgia to deny us that skill on a weekly basis. Reynolds and Broussard can be in the mix here as well, and Cat Hires has been sniffing around the edge of the bars lineup being very 9.775 for a while now. We will surely see her at least a few times this year. With this group, 49.3s look attainable, but while I never thought I would say this, in those early spots they may really miss the reliably 9.850 work of Christa Tanella.

Beam:

Well, it can’t start off any worse than it did last season, which should be some source of comfort. That this team ended up ranked fourth on beam by the end of the year is a testament to . . . well, it’s a testament to the fact that RQS imposes an artificially small sample size on the rankings to produce a misleading impression of the season as a whole without sufficiently reflecting consistency.

While the top routines on vault and bars have returned, Georgia has lost star routines on the remaining events, and coping without Shayla’s beam (which always held at least the potential for 9.9s) could prove a challenge. Brittany Rogers has a wonderfully unique routine that needs to score higher than it has been, and I was quite impressed by Cheek’s work and mesmerizing, borderline frightening sinewy thigh definition that received a 10 in the intrasquad. (You mean Grace Taylor’s judging might not have been 100% accurate?! I’m in shock.) Kaylan Earls and her two layout series will surely be back, and Sarah Persinger has too much elegance to be out of this lineup, even though she gets a little 9.7y sometimes. I’m happy with Broussard on this event, and I think we can expect some early-season lineup experimentation with her, Mary Beth Box, Hires, and hopefully even Jay to see who can hit and earn those final spots.

But who is getting the 9.9s here? Rogers, Cheek, Persinger, and Earls must be the most likely nominees, but we haven’t consistently seen that kind of scoring from any of them before. Rogers and Persinger got two last season, and Earls and Cheek each got three, but that’s not frequent enough for any to be considered a likely 9.9. At least one person has to emerge in that role, getting 9.9s at 50% of meets, and these waist bends for 9.7s must be eradicated if this is to be a competitive event. 

Floor:

The regression concerns I have about beam are heightened on floor because it was Georgia’s weakest event already last season, and now it’s also the only event with just three returners from last season’s final lineup. Georgia looks to be in the position of using people who couldn’t make the lineup last year, which is always trouble. That’s why it’s crucial that Brittany Rogers be a standout. She’s way too talented to fail to make this lineup or for everyone to be really proud when she gets a 9.825. She needs to be a worthy 5th up, which would go a long way to helping this lineup keep pace with last year.

Brandie Jay should anchor again for the strongest scores, and Ashlyn Broussard’s DLO can be a huge help because otherwise there is not a lot of big tumbling on this team. It’s imperative that her DLO be competition-ready and that she regularly be in the lineup. Earls and Persinger should return as well, and there shouldn’t be a shortage of people who can do a routine in some shape or form (Reynolds competed in the IS, Hires has gotten plenty of 9.7s here before, Mary Beth Box exists), but what kind of scores are they getting? I can see this lineup having way too many 9.800s to keep pace with the big tumbling elsewhere in the SEC. That’s why Broussard’s and Rogers’ routines are so vital. If those two and Jay can always be 9.875+, they’ll be OK, but otherwise it will get scary. 

Outlook:
Making Nationals should be very straightforward for this team. They can ride strong vault and bars rotations into the high 196s for most of the season, even if they’re just 49 elsewhere, and when good beam days come around (which I do expect to happen periodically), they should have no trouble being a 197 team and settling into a ranking in that 6-8 zone. Georgia could be in a fight with LSU to be the #3 team in the SEC, but when comparing the floor rotations in particular, it’s hard to imagine Georgia reversing their dismal head-to-head with LSU from last year.

Overall, I wouldn’t expect any significant improvement in the scoring over last season. Keeping pace with 2013’s results would be a victory, which is why I cannot predict Georgia returning to Super Six at this point, not when a number of their peers in the second half of the top 10 look to improve markedly over last season.  

I mentioned in my preseason rankings that if Stanford is able to meet the potential of its roster in 2014, #9 is a very soft projection, and I stand by that statement. The ceiling for this team is quite a bit higher, and they have every opportunity to be much stronger in 2014 than in 2013. In 2013, Stanford met expectations by making Nationals but went out on a depressing note after an Ivana Hong injury followed by woeful bars and beam rotations.

Speaking of Hong, the official Ivana Hong color-coded injury alert system is perpetually in the  yellow range, verging on ocher, but in the aftermath of her nasty Semifinal knee injury last year, she’s up to burnt umber. Do we know what’s going on with her now? This is NCAA, where some teams guard information about serious injuries like its a matter of national security, so it’s always hard to tell where gymnasts stand (if they can). Usually we just have to check people’s twitter accounts, and when they suddenly start retweeting a lot of quotes about perseverance and heart, we know everything has gone wrong. For the purpose of this preview, I’m including Ivana Hong in these events because I haven’t heard otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty, or something like that. 

Fortunately, Stanford fans no longer have to pretend that Hong, Shapiro, and Vaculik will all be healthy and hitting for 9.9s at the same time in order to trick themselves to sleep at night. There are big-potential freshmen worth getting excited about this year, especially because this new crop is a powerful collection that should renovate the lineups on vault and floor and prop up a few of Stanford’s weak areas. We could see all-around contribution from Rachel Daum, Nicolette McNair, and possibly Sophia Lee (though we haven’t seen anything from her since 2012, so it’s harder to judge). Here we go.

Vault:
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/Nzc4NjM0NTE3?related=1&autoplay=false

Without top vaulter Nicole Dayton, Stanford’s returning vault lineup would primarily consist of a couple yfulls for 9.825s, making it all but impossible to contend with those power vaulting 49.500 teams, which is why we can expect the largest influx of freshman routines on this event. That should be the biggest signpost as to how well Stanford is doing on vault this year. The more freshmen making it into the lineup, the better off they will be.

Rachel Daum competed a high-scoring Y1.5 in JO and certainly has the power to own a full, and speaking of owning a full, Nicolette McNair should do just that and figure near the end of the lineup as well. Her sister, Danielle, is the less heralded of the McNairs, but vault is the event on which she is most likely to appear. As mentioned, we haven’t seen as much from Sophia Lee lately, but she always had a handy yfull as well. The team is getting new life on vault this year, and we could see all four of these freshmen in the rotation.

If Hong is around, she obviously has an excellent full that can go into the 9.9s, and beyond that there are a number of perfectly acceptable possibilities who can come back into the lineup like Taylor Rice, Pauline Hanset, Kristina Vaculik, maybe even Alex Archer who competed twice last year or Melissa Chuang, though I believe she is currently dealing with injury as well. These others are more in the supporting, low 9.8s category, but look how many options I’ve just named! Occasionally over the last few years, Stanford has gone into the 49.4s on vault, but it has always come as a surprise. If enough of these freshmen join the lineup, that score can become consistent and unsurprising.

Bars:

Ah, but with great power comes . . . maybe not being so strong on bars, so this is the prime area where the Hong, Shapiro, Vaculik veteran triumvirate will still need to be the dominant scoring force in the back half of the lineup for Stanford to be competitive. The precision of Shapiro’s handstands and the life-changing power of Vaculik’s gienger will be required to get those elusive 9.9s. Alex Archer is a concentrated stick of potential on this event, but the scores haven’t always come. Still, she should be given a shot, and Shona Morgan is always good for a leadoff 9.8 if necessary.

This is also the most likely area for Sophia Lee to make an impact on the team since she consistently finished in the top 10 on bars during her elite days. Nicolette McNair also possesses an excellent jaeger that a routine could be built around, so get the handstands together and she can be top scorer.

Bars potential isn’t exactly a new thing for this team. Stanford has the tendency to be so tantalizingly 9.9 on bars and then suddenly 9.7 after a weird dismount, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be seeing minimum 49.3s here by March. 

Beam:

Beam has been a missed opportunity for Stanford lately, especially last year. Because so many teams (even top teams) struggle on this event, the ability to consistently record a 49.4 is enough to make a season. Just look at Oklahoma. Stanford has had the talent to make beam a signature event in that same way, but it did not come together last year. Sami Shapiro no longer doing beam is a blow because she could have been brilliant, but still, look at this team. Ivana Hong is an absolute treat, Amanda Spinner is significantly excellent for 9.9s, and I’ve always been a great fan of Shona Morgan’s performance, even though it didn’t get a lot of attention last season while buried in the first position. That’s an excellent core of work that most teams would love to have.

As on the other pieces, I would expect Nicolette McNair and Rachel Daum to inject some strength into this event, and while I haven’t yet mentioned another member of the parade of freshmen, Carinne Gale, this was her strongest event in JO, so she could be another option. I hope to see Kristina Vaculik compete beam a lot, but this is the area where her consistency problems show up the most, so with increased options this season, the team may decide her potential is not worth the risk. Ditto for Taylor Rice. She was in a revolving door with Pauline Hanset last year as the sixth worker, both showing some strong and some nerve-wracking performances, and both can do beam but may not be called upon this year if other new options pan out. 

Floor:

Stanford ranked 19th on floor last season. A team cannot remotely contend at the top of the table while being 19th on floor, especially when teams like Florida are getting 49.7s in Super Six and making a 49.1 all but disastrous by comparison. Last season, it seemed like every Stanford floor rotation began with a pair of 9.7s, and that cannot continue. At least a handful of the powerful freshmen, Daum, N McNair, D McNair, Haley Spector, Lee and the cavalcade of E passes they bring (it’s the year of the double arabian), must get into this lineup and hit those big passes to change Stanford’s narrative away from being a bars and beam team with unfulfilled potential.

The exit of Ashley Morgan means the most on this apparatus, so we need to see that massive infusion of new scoring potential. If they manage to push at least three of these freshmen into the lineup, they can finally get out of this 49.150 purgatory, aided by Shapiro, Rice, perhaps Shona Morgan (and hopefully Hong, of course).   

Outlook:
As you may have noticed, this is a rather optimistic look at Stanford, but the potential is tremendous on this team. Some of these lineups are going to be nearly unrecognizable from last year, in a good way. And yet, it’s Stanford, so I’m unready to declare anything with any confidence. It’s either going to be profoundly fabulous or a complete disaster. There is no in-between territory for a group like this. The road to 197s is fairly well defined. I can absolutely see how they would get there, but let’s just say that if they start the season with a rash of 194s again, no one will be suffering from the vapors or getting out the smelling salts.

Of the teams I’ve previewed so far, the focus has been on the potential to make Nationals, but Stanford is the first team for which I’m not focusing on Nationals but on Super Six. There’s no reason not to have that lofty goal for a team like this. I could see Stanford leapfrogging the likes of Georgia, Michigan, and Utah if everything goes to plan. And if you’re a new fan looking for a team to support that isn’t among the big, obvious choices, give Stanford a look this season, particularly if you don’t mind heart attacks and a lifetime of dashed dreams.

In 2013, Nebraska and Oregon State taught us the valuable lesson that winning a conference championship is the worst. Teams, you really shouldn’t bother. Nebraska scored a 250 million at Big Tens (or, as you’re supposed to write, B10s, but then you’d have to spontaneously melt out of shame), yet when it came to Regionals, they imploded on three of four events to get edged by Illinois in the most exciting rotation of the season. Illinois finished on beam needing a 49.050 to make Nationals after Nebraska killed vault, and they kept getting 9.750, 9.800, 9.800. Ack, it was so close. It’s the wonder of NCAA gymnastics, and the main thing I emphasize when talking up this sport. On amazing days like Regionals, you may never have seen one iota of Illinois gymnastics before, but you’ll suddenly end up caring more about their beam rotation than you do about the Olympics. I promise. (Now we just need to find a way to inject that feeling into the regular season.)  

For the Huskers in 2014, it’s a season of redemption. They were way too talented to miss Nationals last year, and they need to prove it this year by erasing that result. They certainly should be capable of doing so. While Nebraska is once again a small team, it’s hopefully a healthier team, which should boost some of the rotations. With both Ariel Martin and Jordyn Beck returning as redshirt freshmen to join this year’s new class, it’s a bit like Nebraska is getting two classes full of freshmen, which should help infuse these lineups with new potential to back up the stars, Emily Wong and Jessie DeZiel.

But because the team basically has two new classes, only six of the twelve current members have ever competed routines before, which is a little unnerving because there are few proven options. Nothing says you need proven options, but we’ve seen so little from the unproven ones that there’s nothing to go on as of yet, especially because Nebraska is one of the teams we often know the least about given the dearth of preseason videos and broadcast meets. But we must manage somehow. 

Vault:

In case you haven’t heard, Nebraska can vault a little bit. This team gets tremendous blocks and distance on their vaults, and once they pick up steam with those landings at the end of the season, can vault with any team in the country. This is a huge asset because, even if the other events are a little rough, vault can salvage an adequate score (as it almost did at Regionals—they could have overcome two weak events, but not three).

Both DeZiel and Wong are excellent on this event and should return to the back of the lineup for 9.9+ (this will be a bit of a trend, so watch out). That’s the kind of one-two punch that would normally require only 9.850-9.875s from the rest of the team to get a strong score, but there’s a bit more potential on Nebraska’s team than that. I have no idea what kind of position Jamie Schleppenbach is in after missing most of last season with injury, but vault is one of the obvious places she can be used if she’s fully back. At her healthiest, her scoring potential was right there with Wong and DeZiel in the 9.9s.

Both of the other holdovers from last year’s lineup, Hollie Blanske and Desire’ Stephens, can return, and both can be relied on for something on the stronger side of the 9.8s. But I’m also looking at Ariel Martin, who excels on vault and floor and has super power on her yfull, and Ashley Lambert, whose best event as a junior elite was vault by a wide margin. She beat McKayla Maroney on vault at 2009 Classics (except, so did several other people because Maroney only did a full), but still—claim to fame! 

As usual, there may not be too many options, but I would be quite happy with a lineup of any of those I mentioned. Getting 49.5+ by the end of the year doesn’t seem out of the question again.

Bars:

The uneven bars is an area where I see a bit more potential for regression from 2013. For the last several years, bars has been a very strong event, but a good chunk of that success has now left. While the 5th and 6th routines from last year are returning on vault, they are not returning on bars, and Janelle Giblin and her fantastic Gienger was often the strongest bars routine on the team. The Huskers will miss her here. However, look for Wong and DeZiel to bring in the big scores regardless. Neither are bars slouches by any means.

Beyond those two, we’re going to have to wait and see who emerges. There are several options: Blanske had a rough journey at the beginning of last season but got it together for 9.8s later on, Schleppenbach has been a 9.800 contributor in the past, and Jennifer Lauer made a couple cameos on bars last year as well, though they were mostly 9.7y toward the end. I also think Jennie Laeng has some potential here (traditional long lines argument, etc.), and this is probably the event where she’s most likely to come in. There are a number of other people on the roster who do bars, but haven’t done bars, so there are unknowns. All of them have areas where they need form assistance if they are to compete for acceptable scores, so it could be tougher to get a strong six on this event than it has been in recent years.

Beam:

It’s a bit of a broken record with Nebraska, but beam always does seem to be the biggest concern, with Regionals last season another entry on the list. Rare is the team that can recover from 5 scores under 9.8 in a Regionals beam rotation. Once again, expect Emily Wong to anchor for 9.9s and the hearts of millions and Jessie DeZiel to support for her with high 9.8s (though DeZiel is a bit more susceptible to those nasty little 9.7s). This duo can (and probably will need to) dig the team out of trouble. 

Jennifer Lauer also emerged as a vital, mostly sturdy member of the lineup last season by minimizing her wobble deductions. Those three should easily come back to the lineup, but after them there are few proven options again. I’m encouraged by the potential Jordyn Beck brings on this event. She could have really helped out the team last year had she been healthy, so let’s hope that happens this year instead. In general, I expect it to be a casting call for 9.8s. Nearly all of the team can do 10.0 SV beam routines, so why not throw some options out there and see what (literally) sticks? It’s not as much about having enough numbers this year as about having enough consistency so that Wong and DeZiel can get the rotation into the 49.2s and don’t have to recover from an early 9.675. But, I wouldn’t be too surprised by those early 9.675s.

Floor:

Nebraska hasn’t lost as many options on floor as on bars and beam, so there should be more possibilities for the final six this season, especially because some big power is joining the team to provide a refreshing plethora of E passes. Last season, most floor competitors upgraded their opening passes by the end of the year, but I remember watching the team in January and it was just a parade of double pike mounts, which was a little dispiriting. 

Ditto Wong and DeZiel from the previous events, but especially be sure to watch Emily Wong’s triple full mount on floor because it’s a national treasure. Both can go 9.9+ and should be getting high 9.8s at minimum on a regular basis. I’d expect Hollie Blanske to return as well, and as on vault, Martin and Lambert will be bringing the power potential, both with DLO mounts. If those two can come into the lineup, this is a prime area for scoring improvement over last season, and 49.3+ should be a comfortable accomplishment. Add in Jennifer Lauer, Stephens, and Schleppenbach as contributors, and the options exist here.

Outlook: 
Nebraska lost quite a few routines from last season, especially on bars and beam, but I’m still mostly optimistic about this team’s chances to return to Nationals. Vault and floor should be strong enough to recover from the usual beam concerns and the loss of a big score on bars, and the mid-high 196s should be a very realistic score, with the 197s coming periodically when beam is on form.

Of course, we’ll know more once we actually see the likes of Martin, Beck, Lambert, and Laeng compete (or train) NCAA routines, because everything about them is based on potential at the moment, but I expect this to be another season of Nebraska getting a lot out of a relatively small number of contributors. The #10 ranking seems about right for now.