Marquee Meet
[3] Utah @ [3] UCLA
Sunday, February 23rd, 3:00pm PT – ESPN2
Well, look how that worked out. Utah and UCLA find themselves tied in the rankings heading into their annual wackadoo dual that is truly going to be a sight this year. What do we think…three 10s? Five?
UCLA has been the stronger team over the last couple seasons and is hosting the meet this year, so the advantage will default to the Bruins. At the same time, we’ve seen UCLA putting up some non-ideal lineups lately, and last weekend the Bruins scored basically the same thing for a (semi) hit meet as Utah did for counting a fall on floor. That’s why Utah will feel, with a hit meet, this thing is very winnable, even on the road.
While it’s all been “Utah’s beam, Utah’s beam, Utah’s beam” (and we’ll get there), at least equally critical in this performance will be vault. Utah’s vaulting last week was excellent in the Y1.5 landings department from Hall-Burch-Tessen, a serious step—or seven—better than what we had seen earlier in the season. If repeated, and if UCLA is still hopping around on those 1.5s, vault provides Utah with a chance for a legitimate multi-tenth advantage. Because UCLA is theoretically the stronger team on bars and floor, Utah will be particularly keen to muffle that advantage with its vaulting performance so that winning doesn’t have to be all about beam.
As for beam, that’s obviously going to be THE TEST of this meet because it has been easily Utah’s best event this year while it has been the rebellious problem child for UCLA. But when you look at the gymnasts in these lineups, Utah shouldn’t actually be any better than UCLA on beam given that the Bruins can put up people like Ross and Glenn and Flatley. The difference between the two beam teams has been consistency, health, and confidence. So most important for UCLA will be not just hitting beam but hitting to the lineup’s actual potential. Last week’s 49.275, for instance, was an improvement on some of the weeks before, but still not enough to cut it or to minimize the beam difference that rankings tell us exists between these two.
Much depends on the actual fullness of UCLA’s lineups. I mentioned that the Bruins should be the better team on bars, but that’s fairly contingent on Frazier being in the lineup for a 9.9+ routine to complete that unassailable Flatley-Kocian-Frazier-Ross punch. Meanwhile, floor has certainly done the job—being ranked #1 and all—but Flatley-Lashbrooke-Andres is not the final, ideal, postseason leadoff group with the highest scoring potential. Now, I mean, it’s UCLA at home in a big regular season meet. They could put up Nicki Shapiro doing a yoga workshop in the third spot and get 9.875 for it (the dream), but if there are tenths that need to be made up in the final rotation, you want gymnasts like Frazier and Tratz in there for the most likely 9.9+ scores.
This is going to be a fun one.
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