WEEK 5 RANKINGS | |||
1. | Oklahoma | 197.760 | |
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2. | LSU | 197.555 | |
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3. | Florida | 197.430 | |
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4. | Utah | 196.950 | |
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5. | UCLA | 196.750 | |
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6. | Alabama | 196.671 | |
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7. | Michigan | 196.400 | |
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8. | Boise State | 196.238 | |
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9. | Georgia | 196.179 | |
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10. | Kentucky | 196.054 | |
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11. | Oregon State | 195.980 | |
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12. | Denver | 195.900 | |
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13. | Missouri | 195.883 | |
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14. | George Washington | 195.865 | |
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15. | Cal | 195.785 | |
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16. | Auburn | 195.717 | |
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17. | Washington | 195.656 | |
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18. | Ohio State | 195.585 | |
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19. | Nebraska | 195.565 | |
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20. | Southern Utah | 195.425 | |
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21. | Illinois | 195.410 | |
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22. | Iowa | 195.325 | |
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23. | Arkansas | 195.305 | |
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24. | West Virginia | 195.215 | |
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25. | Iowa State | 194.938 | |
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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