Monthly Archives: November 2016

Fun with Numbers

Does It Pay to 1.5?

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The start value of the Yurchenko full may have been changed to promote more variety on vault, but the most delicious byproduct of the move has been the creation of a big, fat dilemma. The new strategic twist for coaches to grapple with: does an extra .05 actually make the Yurchenko 1.5 worth it, or is it smarter to stay with the trusty full?

Preseason training videos reveal that this dilemma is even more widespread this year than last year, and over the next month or so, coaches will have to make major decisions about whether their gymnasts should actually compete that wonky 1.5 they’ve been training.

So……should they?

Thankfully, we now have a whole season of evidence to use in making that decision for them, so let’s take a look at whether competing the Yurchenko 1.5 actually ended up being worth it in 2016.

Item 1: The average vault scores from the national championship (semifinals and Super Six), separated by type of vault. The first table includes all vaults, while the second table removes the falls.

2016 Nationals – Average Scores (with falls)
Yurchenko 1.5 9.829
Other vaults 9.821
Yurchenko full 9.803
2016 Nationals – Average Scores (no falls)
Yurchenko 1.5 9.867
Other vaults 9.863
Yurchenko full 9.803

The story these tables tell is a relatively optimistic one for Team 1.5. Even with a few falls at nationals, the 1.5 still ended up being more valuable than the full on average, a good argument for its being worth the risk. When falls are not included, the margin between the vaults balloons to 0.064, greater than the 0.050 difference in start value. Continue reading Does It Pay to 1.5? →

Season Preview

SEC and Pac-12 Freshman Round-Up

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For most of the schools in the Pac-12 and SEC, I already have specific posts full of overly charitable impressions of how this season’s freshmen might end up contributing to their teams, but in the event of dramatic laziness, they’re right here:

Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Cal
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Utah

BUT WAIT! These conferences also contain other schools (sometimes…), so here’s a brief (ha!) overview of the key freshmen joining those remaining SEC and Pac-12 programs, the ones you may want to know about for various fandom/fantasy gym needs.

WASHINGTON
Madison Copiak, Michaela Nelson, Evanni Roberson, Haley Roy, Maya Washington

Elise Ray should basically be bouncing off the walls that this is the first freshman class she gets to work with as head coach. It’s a thing. Madison Copiak was just a hair away from being on Canada’s 2015 worlds team and brings elite-level difficulty across four events, including a 1.5 on vault and a bars routine that nearly got her on a few teams here and there. It will just take some refining to turn her routines into useful NCAA scores.

Continue reading SEC and Pac-12 Freshman Round-Up →

Stuff and Nonsense

Things Are Happening – November 11, 2016

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A. NCAA training

LSU invited FLOG to this week’s intrasquad, which featured McKenna Kelley’s new vault—a handspring piked 1/2—and a whole mess of other routines. Almost like an intrasquad or something. In addition to Kelley’s new vault, we’ll see 1.5s from Edney, Hambrick, and Harrold, along with Gnat’s DTY of course. (No routines from Ewing here.) Lexie Priessman continues to show a full that’s way too easy for her but probably a good idea considering, you know, her everything. Highlights:

Yes:

 

Yes:

Continue reading Things Are Happening – November 11, 2016 →

NCAA Rosters

NLI Week 2017-2018

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On the bright side, at least we’ll all be dead soon.

Anyway, Wednesday marks the beginning of NLI week, the annual period during which schools finally reveal to us which gymnasts have signed on to join their programs for the 2018 competition season. The large majority will not be a surprise since most of these gymnasts have been verbally committed since the late 1860s, but there are always a few little pieces of interest (usually regarding who doesn’t sign rather than who does).

To review:
-NLI = National Letter of Intent
-When a gymnast signs an NLI, it signals the end of the recruiting process and confirms a gymnast’s intent to attend the school in question. At this point, all other schools must cease recruiting.
-The NLI is accompanied by the athletic aid (scholarship) agreement. Gymnasts can’t sign NLIs if they are not receiving athletic aid, though they can receive athletic aid without signing an NLI.

So, let’s see what we see.

The cool thing these days is to announce the signees one-by-one on twitter, so if this information is urgent to you, keep checking there. I’ll add teams here once they issue the formal release about the entire class.

FLORIDA – Release
Megan Skaggs and Vanasia Bradley

Two former elites for Florida. (Former elite??? Florida??? Well I never!) Skaggs competed elite through 2015 and into the senior division, while Bradley was a junior elite until her 2013 injury.

In addition to this pair, Alyssa Baumann is also slated to join the entering 2017-2018 class, but she signed her NLI last season with her original class. Continue reading NLI Week 2017-2018 →