As previously established, the official platform of this website is to pretend this is a normal season and that everything is normal and LALALALALA can’t hear you. Which means, the normal thing to do about this time of year is freshman previews so that we can start making wild proclamations about who’s going to be better or worse this season. Up first, Georgia. Because I said so.
GEORGIA
Who Is She?
Georgia has welcomed a trio of new gymnasts headlined by former junior elite obsession Victoria Nguyen. Nguyen burst onto the scene in 2014 as a Chow’s baby who scored a massive 15.200 on beam the second day of nationals, the highest beam score of the junior competition and third-highest of the entire meet—behind only Simone Biles and Kyla Ross.
The remainder of Nguyen’s elite career was marked by being injured every 30 seconds of her life, but she did return to elite as an Everest athlete in 2019, where the stupid elite qualifying rules meant she could compete only vault and bars at American Classic and we didn’t even get to see beam. But I’m totally over it.
Nguyen is joined in this class by Katie Finnegan (no relation), who arrives at Georgia a year early to save the day. Finnegan is among the group of new 2021 athletes in the odd position of having almost never competed as a senior. She was a junior in 2019, and then the everything happened, and now she’s coming to college a year early. That doesn’t mean anything about anything; it’s just unusual to have your senior division years get…skipped. In the junior F division at 2019 JO Nationals, Finnegan placed 6th all-around with a particularly significant (for Georgia purposes) 3rd place on bars.
Nhyla Bryant makes it three. Bryant qualified to L10 Nationals for the first time in 2019 after a very strong showing at regionals, going on to place 9th on floor in Senior C at nationals. Bryant has consistently scored quite high on both vault and floor throughout her L10 career.
What’s She Going to Do?
Because of Rachel Dickson’s injury last year, Georgia was already forced to grow accustomed to living without her, so the sole task for this new class is making up for the 3.5 lost routines from Sabrina Vega. Given this group of three athletes, all of whom should contribute, Georgia will expect a net gain in depth and realistic competition sets for 2021. Anticipating ~8 competition routines from this group is not going out on a limb.
It’s a total former-elite-cliche to say that the only obstacle to success in college is whether she can stay (or become) healthy, but with Victoria Nguyen it is even more exceptionally true than usual since she has been able to compete only sporadically over the last six years—and never ever for any concentrated length of time. It’s a concern.
But if a college-career renaissance is in the cards for Nguyen, her most impressive event has always been beam, where she has the chops to produce one of the best college beam routines in the country. In terms of current college athletes (and former club teammates), a Norah Flatley-style contribution should be the model for Nguyen at Georgia. The team will want a big beam from her to replace Vega’s score, and her truly beautiful ability on bars will be required to reinvent what was quite a weak lineup last year. After that, if you end up getting a Yfull option on vault and a floor routine from Nguyen, that’s even better, but it’s not the most important thing.
Katie Finnegan is not the most heralded of L10 recruits, but there’s a reason Georgia has her joining early this season as she’s a realistic lineup contributor on all four pieces. Most important among that collection should be bars and vault. On bars, Finnegan boasts a Van Leeuwen, Staldering to the max, and a comfortable FTDT dismount that looks like a definite fixer for that lineup. Finnegan also vaults a Y1.5 that has been quite pretty for her at times. On other occasions she has struggled with the landing (why her JO vault scores aren’t the 9.8s you might expect), but the potential is there, making it certainly a worthwhile project to try to get into the lineup.
Finnegan’s clean twisting extends to floor, where she opens with a college-ready front 2/1, and on beam she has the necessary repertoire of deduction-minimal acro like a side aerial and a layout stepout series. Those events did not score quite as high for her overall in her JO career, but with some savvy leap selection in developing college routines, she can figure in both lineups.
For Nhyla Bryant, the name(s) of the game on vault and floor is big, simple, and technically precise. While not competing more than a full on vault or a double pike on floor, those skills are high and correct, which can go a long way if you’re looking for someone to fill that Vega role on vault or set up the floor lineup in an early-mid position. I don’t anticipate we’ll see Bryant on bars and beam, but she is someone with more nascent ability on those pieces than her competition results would suggest, so if it’s an “all hands on deck” bars situation, you never know.
Shut Up and Show Me It
| ROUTINE VIDEOS | ||||
| Nhyla Bryant | VT | UB | BB | FX |
| Katie Finnegan | VT | UB | BB | FX |
| Victoria Nguyen | VT | UB | BB | FX |
Nguyen’s beam is lovely, and I really hope she’s not forced to moonwalk…
I believe they think it’s an honor to be chosen
Well bless their hearts.
Georgia was actually lucky to have season cancelled last year because could have been a no nationals year once they lost Dickson. Still not that impressed with Kupets recruiting. They have a long way to go to catch top teams in SEC let alone be a national championship contender in the near future.
Anyone have injury updates looked like Nyla Bryant was in some sort of sling & Rachel Luckacs was tumbling w/ only one hand?
Considering the cupboard was near bare when Kupets arrived and this team rivaling the early 00s Gymdogs and late 00s Bruins in yes of injuries, I think they’re starting to right the ship. Depending on how healthy Schild and Oakley are, they could actually have a good barsclineup. And beam is promising as well.
Actually should not have been dry because Kupets should have had Audrey Davis and Kiya Johnson but Kupets could not secure those commits & they flipped.
Have you seen their upcoming recruiting classes? They have good athletes, but not top tiered recruits that other top 5 schools are getting. Georgia no longer getting any Elites and not even the top Level 10’s. Remember those athletes that were Georgia’s top performers the past few years including this years seniors, were all recruited by Danna Durante. So please tell me how Kupets is doing? Have you seen the commits Florida, UCLA, Utah, LSU, OU have coming in. Even Bama, Michigan seem to have stronger recruiting classes. Unfortunately, recruiting is a huge part of success.
I’d argue that Georgia’s appeal dropped considerably before Kupets became head coach. The winning tradition halted the moment Suzanne retired. That is a hard sell to current elites and top level 10s. This hasn’t just happened to Georgia. Stanford and ASU are also victims to this. ASU was rocking in the 80s and 90s and getting tons of elites. They came close to winning 4 times and consistently made nationals. Once the winning stopped, the high profile recruits stopped. Stanford went from Pac 10 champions or runner ups and Super Six contender for the crown to bottom of the Pac 12 and failing to make nationals. Oklahoma weren’t consistently pulling the top recruits until they started winning national titles. It is a constant cycle. If you are the most sought after, you can pick any school you want, 99% of the time a top contending school will be selected. Right now Georgia is not a top contending school.
It’s also pretty clear that Jay Clark is running the UGA recruiting playbook (which is the playbook Kupets knows) at LSU, which is going to make Kupets’ life more difficult.
Stanford has still been getting good recruits but has been running them into the ground once they arrive.
ASU & Stanford also do not have facilities and support like UGA has. This has not changed at Georgia. Recruits do like upgraded facilities, so not sure why Kupets can not recruit. Isn’t this her 4th year?
It’s all about what a college team has in their arsenal: national championships, and Georgia is #1, with or without Suzanne Yoculan. Courtney is doing a wonderful job, year 3 could just be her year! Don’t ever count UGA out! GO DAWGS
11 year old national championships will not sway a gymnast in 2020. Utah is the second most successful by that measure and they’re a top ten not top five group in terms of recruits. Stanford will always be top choice for the most academically minded recruits- no other gymn school comes close.
And who’ve I’d knocking George Recruiting vs other top 5 schools is forwarding, they’ve only been two five once since 2009. I think they’ll definitely move up but at this point moving does not mean top four or national championship. And we’ll have to wait and see how Clark does on his own. Breaux may not have Yoculan’s assortment of rings but she was a major force non the less.
Any new coach must take over the reins after the previous coach leaves, it’s common sense. Kupets is excellent!
Kupets is still cleaning up after the Jay Clark/Danna Durante fiasco. It was clear the Durante ran the team into the ground. All the shenanigans that occurred right before she was terminated had damaged the team.
I love how everyone always gives Kupets an excuse, but Jay and Danna ran the team into the ground. Jay got fired after year 3, and Danna after year 5. All the shenanigans happened while Jay and Danna were coaching behind the scenes.
11 year old national championships will not sway a gymnast in 2020. Utah is the second most successful by that measure and they’re a top ten not top five group in terms of recruits. Stanford will always be top choice for the most academically minded recruits- no other gymn school comes close.
And who’ve I’d knocking George Recruiting vs other top 5 schools is forwarding, they’ve only been two five once since 2009. I think they’ll definitely move up but at this point moving does not mean top four or national championship. And we’ll have to wait and see how Clark does on his own. Breaux may not have Yoculan’s assortment of rings but she was a major force non the less.
I’d expect UGA to get a slight bump just because (1) it’s academically stronger than a lot of the other schools of similar gymnastics prestige and (2) Athens is a delightful town. But yes, right now it can’t expect to recruit at UCLA/UF levels given its recent relative lack of success.