25 thoughts on “Week 9 Rankings, Notes, RQS Update”

1. Can we talk about the Minnesota situation? Please? I get that Mable and Nordquist were totes magical, but were they really THAT magical?

   Inquiring minds want to know.

   Loading...

   1. You’ve seen Stanford this season with Elizabeth Price. Mable was Minnesota’s Price. Sure, there are individual strong routines, but there’s no 9.925 at the end of every lineup to lift up your 9.775s and 9.8s, you know?

      Loading...

   2. I predicted both Minnesota and Stanford would have struggles this season after graduating classes with so many 9.9+ scorers. But both teams should rebound next year with strong freshmen classes coming in.

      But that current Washington regional is even scarier when you include the face Stanford would be joining the party with LSU, Michigan and Washington. LSU should make it through no problem, but the other three should be an intense battle… plus, who else will be included because Utah State is a pretty scary team to sneak into third place if others falter under pressure.

      Oh, and UCLA’s group is going to Arkansas since I remember once hearing that since the Razorbacks joined the NCAA every time they’ve hosted Regionals UCLA seems to end up in a really competitive battle there. Before the latest batch of injuries I actually liked Arkansas a potential upset team, but now I think just posting a reasonable score at SECs and Regionals is the best goal.

      Alabama and Georgia both have to be smiling if they end up in the same regional in West Virginia because it should be fairly simple for both to make it through if they compete to their potential with no major mistakes. Small hops on landings shouldn’t even matter for either team.

      Personally I think Regionals should be a formality for both OU and LSU no matter who they’re paired with – the only way both teams lose out is if they make major errors. Still both could count a lower score, even a fall, and still win.

      Loading...

      1. I don’t think Stanford is a Regionals upset team this year. I almost don’t even consider them in the battle. They have just been too subpar this year, even for them. I just want Ebee to do a surprise beam routine so that she can go to nationals as an AA.

         Loading...

      2. Right now, either Southern Utah or Utah State would be the 4 seed at the Seattle Regional and either Arizona or Stanford would be the 5.

         Loading...

   3. It seems like every week, Minnesota has a different issue…some weeks they can’t get it together on bars and have to count an 8 there. Other weeks, they hit bars and then go to beam and have to count a fall there. And then there are the weeks where they actually hit all four events and just suffer from mediocrity across the board, like the Best of Minnesota meet a week and a half ago, where the only scored 194.7 for a hit meet, which is even more confusing, given that they showed up a week later and got 196.05 counting a fall on beam (a generously scored fall, but I digress). So this makes their situation very hard to diagnose because it’s not one problem or one event, it’s multiple problems on multiple events. And sometimes it seems like harsh judging, mainly on vault, but not always. It’s a bit of a mystery to me.

      I’m also not entirely convinced that their freshman class next year is going to solve all of their problems, because they are going to be hit hard on vault and especially floor by losing their outgoing senior class – Holst, Abernathy, and Rahon is half their floor lineup and a third of their vault lineup, including their top scorer on vault and their only 10.0 start. So that’s some big holes to fill. (I’m less worried about the holes on beam given how inconsistent Rahon and Holst have been there).

      Loading...

2. As a big fan of both Kentucky and Michigan, I am not liking those current regionals placements. Fingers crossed that there’s some moving around in the rankings in the next two weeks!

   Loading...

   1. I always look at if they hit, who wins. If the regional pairings stay the same, I like Michigan’s chances. Yes, Washington is a good team at home, but if Michigan and Washington both hit, Michigan wins. If Michigan has to count a fall, then it gets dicey, as it should.

      Kentucky, however, is the opposite in my mind. If Kentucky and Nebraska both hit, I give the edge to Nebraska because they’re at home. That’s not to say Kentucky can’t win, but a win will be tough against a hitting Nebraska.

      Loading...

3. so is the header image being the green up arrow but the teams that moved up in the table just having the words “green-up-arrow” by their name some odd meta joke I don’t understand?

   Loading...

   1. Think your browser must not be loading properly – it’s always an actual green arrow for me! (read this last night when it went up and came back this morning to read comments)

      Loading...

      1. Huh, interesting, it’s been “green-up-arrow” all winter for me, too.

         Loading...

4. So I realize this is probably a very silly question, but what would happen if a regionals host didn’t qualify for regionals? Would they still get to compete?

   Loading...

   1. I’m pretty sure the 36 selected for regionals are the only ones that get to compete in regionals. Otherwise, there would be a massive advantage in getting to host regionals, and the advantage would rise to the level of being unfair. This year, though, I think it’s nearly impossible at this point for any of the host teams not to qualify. Arkansas is the closest to the bubble, but they’d have to get passed by 7 teams in the next couple weeks, and some of those teams would have a huge amount of ground to make up, so I’m not thinking this is going to be an issue.

      Loading...

      1. Interesting question… Has a regional host ever not qualified in the top 36 in previous years?

         Loading...

      2. I agree it’s not an issue this season…I pose it more as a theoretical question because I like theoretical questions. And I look at a team like Minnesota that hosted last year and this year is on the verge of not qualifying and wonder what if they had hosted one year later?

         Loading...

      3. Okay, here’s the best I can come up with after various digging around. If you go on the NCAA’s website and look at the section where it explains the national championship, there are two different ways they describe regionals. First they say 36 teams are picked based on RQS and then placed into regional meets. Later they say 6 regional meets with 6 teams each take place. If they were going to guarantee spots to the host teams, one of two things would have to happen. One way would be to bump out teams that should have qualified based on RQS starting with team #36 and moving up as far as #31, depending upon how many hosts needed a spot and hadn’t qualified. The other way would be to add the host to the regional that they were hosting and have that regional be a 7 team meet. Given that they specifically said that regional meets are 6 team meets, I’d think they would have said if an exception existed to that procedure in the case of a regional host not qualifying based on RQS. If they were going to bump other teams out in favor of the hosts, I’d think that would also be a pretty big exception that would have needed to be mentioned. Again, this is in no way proof that regional hosts aren’t guaranteed a spot, but I just feel like that would’ve been stated somewhere on the NCAA’s website in the section where they explained the championships.

         Additionally, I feel like this would’ve been a source of many complaints by now if hosts were actually guaranteed spots because then everyone who thought they may be on the bubble of qualifying for regionals would be clamoring to host and complaining of unfair politics when they weren’t chosen and some other team that had a chance of being reasonably close to the bubble was chosen.

         Anyway, sorry for the dissertation…

         Loading...

      4. Thank you Mary for the detailed response. It makes sense that they wouldn’t get to compete just because they were hosting but with all the talk about where the host was competing, I was curious about whether it happened often (apparently not) and what the result would be. I’ve been following elite for about 25 years but only my second season closely following NCAA so I’m still learning the kinds and outs.

         Loading...

   2. If it’s a silly question at least you’re not alone in having the silly question — I’ve been wondering this too!!! It almost seems risky to choose regional hosts before the season begins, especially since in my opinion the last couple years have been harder to predict (at least for places 15-36).

      Anyone know if this has happened before?

      Loading...

      1. The team wouldn’t qualify just because they are the host. The closest example I can think of is Nebraska hosted Nationals not too long ago and they failed to qualify (when it used to be held on a campus — as it should).

         Loading...

5. Do we know why Kennedy Baker is only on bars?

   Loading...

   1. The commentators in the last meet said she rolled her ankle stepping off a curb.

      Although, I believe she’s been dealing with illness and ankle problems all season. I suspect she’ll be in the AA by Nationals, if not by SECs.

      Loading...

   2. Word on the street is that they are resting her for ankle issues so that she’ll be 100% for postseason. I’m surprised though that they didn’t try and get her up on more events this past week, as it was a pretty big meet for them, so I’m starting to wonder if more is going on…

      Loading...

6. What happened to Keely mcneer?

   Loading...

   1. I thought I heard she might have broken her pinky in a car accident.

      Loading...

7. (Or make that ins and outs, not kinds and outs)

   Loading...

Comments are closed.