26 thoughts on “Week 10 Rankings and Final RQS Scenarios”

1. With UCLA as my favorite team, an alumna of both OSU and UW, and tickets to the UW regional, man am I pleased with the how the rankings are shaking out. I’ve been hoping for this all season…keeping fingers crossed! Thanks for your all your terrific work, BBS, and for converting me into a huge college gym fan.

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   1. Wow that is a dream scenario for you! I hope it works out. UCLA, OSU, and Washington would be an awesome regional competition to watch. Not to mention it would likely also include Stanford, so you could see Price compete, as well.

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      1. Oh man, I forgot about Stanford. You are right, that would be great!

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   2. I’m probably going to get tickets to the Washington regional too. I would love for UCLA, OSU, and Stanford to all be there. Does anyone have recommendations about when to arrive or seating (reserved vs. general admission, location in the arena)?

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      1. There’s a handy map at the bottom of this page that shows the layout: http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/2016/6/14/gymnastics-tickets.aspx

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   3. There’s a slim chance Cal could be there as well if they have a bad meet at Pac12s and drop below #18, unlikely but possible — so UCLA, Oregon St., Washington (host), Cal, and Stanford, it’s the Pac12 Part II The Sequel.

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2. I would love to see the regional pairings stay as they are (I know it won’t happen). The Kentucky/Nebraska, Boise State/Missouri/Arkansas (I wouldn’t count out the hogs at home . . . yet), OSU/Washington match ups would be great. Plus, I would love to see a Utah/Georgia rematch and the pairings look good for Denver.

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   1. Oh yeah, Alabama and Denver as saying to the current regional pairings, “yes please” and you know Utah would love to have revenge on UGA for the 2015 regionals loss at Cal. As for Oregon St. and Washington that looks awesome and if both teams have hit meets and with the Huskies being at home, I’d say UW looks good for the upset win.

      I don’t expect any #1 seeds to fall at regionals (at most a #2 could come out on top but that appears unlikely given the separation between the top six and the next seeds), but many of those #2 and #3 seeds are going to be in a battle with a few of the #19-25 teams also smelling a potential upset if things go their way…

      And just because we love the looks at of this, it means everything will predictably go with all the #1s winning their regional and the #2s finishing second leaving all their challengers in the dust.

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3. Thanks to your blog (and the Gymternet) I feel totally caught up on RQS and how teams qualify to nationals. I don’t however understand what means to be “seeded.” The only sport I watch is gymnastics, so perhaps this is common knowledge that I am not aware of with regards to an NCAA Championship. If anyone has a moment and can clarify, it would make my day. Xo

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   1. The top 18 teams are “seeded” 1st to 18th based on RQS and then placed into regionals based on that ranking in a snake format (Regional 1 would have teams ranked 1st, 12th, 13th, Regional 2 has teams ranked 2nd, 11th and 14th, etc.). The remaining teams in 19th-36th RQS position are distributed geographically meaning they could get stuck in a regional with really hard teams to beat depending on where they are located in the country, regardless of their ranking.

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4. I definitely don’t understand the seedings. It definitely appears to punish #1 seed. A better grouping of the seeds would be, in my opinion:

   1+7+18
   2+8+17
   3+9+16
   4+10+15
   5+11+14
   6+12+13

   Thoughts?

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   1. Yeah, I think every year we all kinda look at this and go: “Why does the 1 seed have to beat the 13 seed to get to the semi-finals when the 6 seed only has to beat the 18 seed?” It is rather counterintuitive to have a system that utilizes seeding in such a way that it actually punishes the higher seeded teams. I will say, though, that this year especially is a case in which it would take quite the freak situation for the 1 seed not to qualify to semi-finals. It would take a combination of a season low from the 1 seed and season highs from both the 12 and 13 seeds to accomplish this. If this actually happened, I would argue that it wouldn’t be right for the 1 seed to completely blame the seeding system for their failure to qualify to nationals. If you have your worst meet of the entire year in the meet that qualifies you to nationals, you primarily have yourself to blame for the way your season ended. I still don’t think this makes the way they set up the regional meets right or sensible at all, but it does put it into perspective to realize that the 1 seed couldn’t get screwed by the system without contributing to the mess pretty significantly themselves.

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      1. I think, in theory, the seeding rules we have are good. In practice, sometimes not, especially if the top 15 or so teams are fairly tightly bunched, then it definitely punishes the top seeds. We don’t have that problem so much this year because, like Mary said above, it would take a complete disaster for any of the #1 seeds to not qualify.

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   2. Not sure why you think facing 7th and 18th is better than facing 12 and 13th. Currently number 12’s high score of the season is about OUs lowest score. The snaking puts more pressure at the bottom of the top 6 seeds and creates more potential for upsets either in those regions. Also creates some tension for the number 2 slot for the regionals with top seeded 3 seeds. Question of outcome is part of why people go to meets – and they do want to sell tickets.

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      1. I’m not sure I really follow what you’re saying about facing 7th and 18th not being better than 12th and 13th. Since the top 2 teams from each regional move on, you don’t need to beat the second-highest ranked team in your regional, you only need to beat the third-highest. That means we’re comparing the difficulty of beating the 13th ranked team to the difficulty of beating the 18th ranked team. This year, that means beating a team whose season high is 197.175 (13th ranked Nebraska) versus a team whose season high is 196.725 (18th ranked George Washington). That’s nearly half a point between those teams’ season highs, which would actually makes a noticeable difference. As far as your point about this creating tension which will sell tickets, I completely agree. I don’t contest the notion that there is a reason behind the seeding method, I just contest the notion that the seeding method gives the greatest advantages to the highest ranked teams.

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5. BYU and Southern Utah are neck and neck after three (SUU up by .250). Both teams are already counting a fall though, which doesn’t bode well with increasing their rankings.

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   1. Stacey Webb just got a 10 on beam!!!

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      1. Watched the meet – really pretty routine. That meant as much to them as winning. I thought the BYU scores were a bit high but they are such an improved team over past years it is kind of exciting. SUU is really up and coming – so glad that college gymnastics is broadening out a bit. The future is going to be a bit more interesting. Amazing that there are now 4 really decent teams in Utah.

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   2. Final: BYU: 195.650, SUU: 195.625. Shame about the falls because they were both on pace for really good scores (BYU counted a fall on beam and SUU counted a fall on both beam and floor).

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   3. Looks like SUU won’t be able to use their score at all, but BYU does get a little bit of a boost, as they had a 195.2 home score to drop. I think adding .09 (.45/5) moves them up into a tie for 32 with PSU.

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   4. The falls in this meet we’re freaking amazing. Someone could make a solid gif set out of them.

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6. I’m hearing that Kocian’s shoulder is being held together with chewing gum and string, so it will be interesting to see how much work (if any) she will get at Pac-12s.

   With a #1 seed secured, does Val rest her again this week, or is a conference title important enough to trot her out there? Or will there be enough crack in Palo Alto that the Bruins can get away with Pua and Rechelle Dennis again?

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7. She is such a frail little thing – not sure that doing the AA every week was a smart decision. Love watching her but that is a lot of strain on an already precarious body. She is a joy to watch but she has had so many injuries. A little coddling might not come a miss. They are deep enough in all events to use her sparingly for the rest of the season. It would be nice for her to make another season. Other teams, i.e. Utah, are surviving with a team of 10 and Cal is handling things without Williams (one of the saddest things to not have her in the lineup). Kocian’s long term health is more important than a tenth or two. I personally want to watch her for a few more years.

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   1. Lol but they literally have her train one day a week plus competition day. Much less than she did as an elite so she may be less worse off than it seems.

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8. A large group of us are traveling to the Arkansas regional (because it’s the closest in driving distance to TX). Can’t wait to see who officially gets placed there! Side note: Crossing my fingers OSU makes top 2 in their regional!!! Lighting all the candles!!! (yes, totally a gymcastic gymnerd reference) Would love for them to make it to NCAA’s as a team again!

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   1. Auburn might be there… They’re either going to Arkansas or Florida. How much clout does the SEC have with the regional assignments? Auburn may have a better chance at an upset top two finish at Arkansas then they do at Florida.

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