WEEK 5 RANKINGS
	1.	Oklahoma	197.760
Sooners stay on track with an average-maintaining 197.675 Nichols remains #1 AA with 39.850, gets first 10.000 on BB OU is #1 on UB, BB, FX, #2 on VT behind Florida
	2.	LSU	197.555
LSU’s 197.425 home score v. Missouri is season-low total (SO low) 9.950s lead the scoring (VT-Hambrick, Gnat; FX-Gnat) Edney wins AA for second week running with 39.375
	3.	Florida	197.430
Gators match LSU with still-acceptable 197.425 in loss to Alabama Baker leads the charge with 39.575 AA, 9.950 on FX Slocum’s 9.925 ties for VT victory, Boren goes 9.925 on FX Alexander debuts on VT with 9.725
	4.	Utah	196.950
Utah counts UB fall for mediocre 196.450 in victory over Cal Skinner leads the AA as usual with 39.500 Rowe adds 9.925 on FX Strain on depth shows in uncharacteristic 9.7s on VT, UB
	5.	UCLA	196.750
UCLA holds steady after second-consecutive road 197 Kocian leads team with 39.625 AA, 9.950 on BB, FX Ross scores career-high 9.975 on BB, but falls on UB, FX Original Peng-Peng Lee beam sit takes away even higher score
	6.	Alabama	196.671
Tide stay put at #6 despite season-high 197.825 v. Florida Winston scores first career 10, wins AA with 39.700 9.950s also come from Winston (UB) and Sims (FX) Jetter adds floor back for 9.850
	7.	Michigan	196.400
Michigan opens with UB falls, counting 8.9 for 196.475 total 49.450 on BB, 49.400 on FX save what could have been a 195 9.975 from Chiarelli (FX) and 9.950 from Marinez (BB) lead scoring
	8.	Boise State	196.238
Boise State breaks 197 in home rout of Southern Utah As usual, UB leads the scoring with 9.900s from Mejia, Collantes Remme’s 39.450 wins AA
	9.	Georgia	196.179
More Georgia BB woes for 196.500 final One fall, three other scores of 9.700 or lower on BB take away a 197 Vaculik returns to the UB lineup with 9.900 Vega reaches 9.900 on FX
	10.	Kentucky	196.054
Kentucky gets back on 196 track with 196.150 loss to Georgia Uncontrolled VT landings thwart possible upset bid 9.925s on BB from Hyland, Dukes lead the team
	11.	Oregon State	195.980
OSU keeps chugging up the rankings with 196.200 win @ Arizona Gardiner 9.950 on BB leads the scoring Random counting 9.6s on BB, 9.7s on UB, FX take away higher total
	12.	Denver	195.900
Five VTers finally caught up to Denver with a counting 8.750 Drop 4 ranking places with 194.500 final score At least Maddie Karr went 39.400
	13.	Missouri	195.883
A continuing theme of UB trouble hits Missouri for 195.425 Otherwise, Missouri was on 196 track on VT, BB, FX Ward leads with 9.925 VT (better than 9.950 VT from 2 weeks ago)
	14.	George Washington	195.865
Season-high 196.400 jumps GW into the top 15 (the top 15! GW!) The usual suspects do their usual thing 9.900s from CDA (VT) and Raineri (FX) lead
	15.	Cal	195.785
Season-ending injury to Williams forces Cal to shuffle lineups No counting falls but many 9.7s in 195.725 final Team-high scores are 9.850 from Richardson (UB) and So Seilnacht (BB)
	16.	Auburn	195.717
Auburn gains one spot despite 196.075 in loss to Arkansas Counting FX fall takes away a more useful score Cerio goes 9.900 on both UB and FX
	17.	Washington	195.656
Counting UB fall removes chance for victory, mid-196 Washington still moves up one spot after 195.825 Flood of 9.875s (Hoffa – FX; Goings, Rose, Schaeffer – BB) lead team Copiak returns to UB with 9.800
	18.	Ohio State	195.585
OSU moves up one after 195.775 home victory v. Rutgers 9.925 from Mattern on FX leads team Counting 9.6s on UB, BB take away possible 196
	19.	Nebraska	195.565
Mixed-bag weekend ultimately bumps Nebraska up one spot BB and FX catastrophes lead to season-low 194.450 in meet 1 Lambert and Williams adding FX leads to season-high 196.825 in meet 2
	20.	Southern Utah	195.425
Epic and tragic five-fall BB rotation leads to 194.325 final Remember that time I talked about how good SUU would be on BB? Madison McBride (VT), Yee (BB) lead team with 9.875s
	21.	Illinois	195.410
Illinois hits 196 for first time this year in victory over Minnesota Leduc wins AA with huge 39.500, leads BB (9.950), FX (9.900) Horth leads on UB with 9.875
	22.	Iowa	195.325
For fifth-straight week, Iowa is #22 after 195.725 road score 9.850s on UB (Zurawski), FX (Kaji, Snyder), lead to 49+ scores
	23.	Arkansas	195.305
Depleted Arkansas keeps winning somehow, 196.375 over Auburn Garner returns to UB, ties for lineup-high with 9.850 Nelson’s 9.900 on BB leads the team
	24.	West Virginia	195.215
WVU moves up one after 195.950 away at Kent State Koshinski’s 9.900s on VT, FX lead the team as usual Counting 9.6s on UB, BB undermine score
	25.	Iowa State	194.938
Iowa State enters top 25 for first time this year with 195.775 Young leads team with 39.325 AA, 9.900 on FX

Full rankings at RTN.

We’ve reached the point in the season when even big scores aren’t necessarily going to move the rankings a whole lot at the top because the influence of a single score is relatively small. So, Alabama can record quite a significant result in beating Florida with the nation’s high score of the week but still remain at #6. The main movement at the top involved UCLA and Alabama inching closer to Utah and separating themselves from Michigan a bit more.

Boise State moves up to #8 after hitting the 197s, while poor results from Denver and Southern Utah see them both fall several places, accounting for much of the movement in the rest of the rankings. A number of teams were just OK and should have stayed where they were but moved up one spot because Southern Utah fell so many, from #11 to #20, mimicking what Nebraska did the week before.

Playing the “if the regular season ended today” game (and why shouldn’t we?) the regional seedings would look like this:

1: Oklahoma, Denver, Missouri
2: LSU, Oregon State, George Washington
3: Florida, Kentucky, Cal
4: Utah, Georgia, Auburn
5: UCLA, Boise State, Washington
6: Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State

Lots of dangerous as-yet unseeded teams are still floating around as well, several of them hosting regionals like Nebraska and Arkansas. It’s hard enough as is without a 196-capable host sliding in and ruining everything, which we may have a lot of this year. I’ve talked in the past about my love of hosts as #3 seeds because of juicy upset potential, and with Washington, Nebraska, Arkansas, Illinois, and West Virginia as hosts (along with Florida), we should have a lot of juicy host upset potential.

In the RQS game of terror, Nebraska granted itself a temporary stay with a very good 196.8 on Sunday. Of course, that still means needing five more 196s in the remaining five meets to stay in solid shape, but for now it’s OK. So, our attention shifts to some of the other teams sinking down into ranking worries, like Auburn and Stanford. Auburn doesn’t want to be in the ranking situation its in right now, and for evidence of that, look no further than the prospective regional distribution above.

Auburn has six meets remaining and no score greater than 196.400, which isn’t going to cut it to get a #2 seed, while Stanford has six meets remaining and no score yet into the 196s. Last year, when Stanford just sneaked into the seeded teams at #18, the lowest of their six RQS scores was 196.075. Stanford can’t afford any more 195s without running the risk of being unseeded. Unseeded Stanford would also be very bad news for Washington since geographical placement of unseeded teams would put Stanford in Washington’s hosted regional. An unwanted complication.

Southern Utah suffered the most significant of the balance beam situations this week, nearly shooting the moon with a lineup of all falls, but that was relatively rare this weekend. Many more problems occurred on the bars than on the beam. Both Michigan and Washington opened their meets with two consecutive misses that took away any hope of a competitive number within minutes, and there was a period on Saturday during which the national collection of low bars had clearly been cursed since no one could hit vertical on a bail handstand and then Ross and Rowe both botched theirs nearly back-to-back. Kyla Ross fell on a bail handstand, you guys. That’s…not even a situation. Beam is typically the lowest scoring event, but this year bars is giving beam a serious run.

Another trend I noticed this week, something for which there can never be any clear evidence, was pity scoring. Pity scoring is the phenomenon where a team that’s expected to do well will have a terrible rotation in the first half of the meet and then find in the later rotations that their scores are magically way higher than they ever have been before or would normally be for those routines, almost as though the judges are trying to boost them closer to a preconceived total to make up for the earlier mistakes rather than evaluating the routines independently of other rotations. (See: Florida, 2013 Super Six). Pity scoring was aggressive this weekend in a number of meets.

Non-famous stars of the week
Gymnasts from schools outside the top 25 who scored over 9.900

Macey Hilliker, Katy Clements, Denelle Pedrick, CMU – Floor, 9.925
Quite the little floor score for Central Michigan at 49.475

Lauren Feely, Bowling Green – Vault, 9.925
#NeverRememberAlwaysForget