At the conference championships, 19 routines received a 10 from at least one of the judges. The four-judge splits are included here.
Natalie Wojcik – Vault – Michigan (10.000/10.000/10.000/9.950)
Lynnzee Brown – Bars – Denver (10.000/10.000/10.000/9.950)
Kiya Johnson – Floor – LSU (10.000/10.000/10.000/9.950)
The regional championship assignments have been announced, and we now know which unseeded teams have been “geographically” placed at which regional sites. I put “geographically” in quotes because it is a farce, since if you were actually geographically assigning teams, most teams would end up going to West Virginia, and instead, you ended up sending Temple to Utah because of…checks notes…the geography.
So, yeah, the selection-show-that-could-have-been-an-email has revealed exactly how many ways they screwed this up. (IT’S A LOT.) Including how the image to illustrate “women’s gymnastics” was of Jade Degouveia, who hasn’t competed for a year.
Let’s dissect it as a family.
Format review: The winner of each Thursday (April 1) play-in joins semifinal #1. The top 2 teams in each regional semifinal on Friday (April 2) advance to the regional final on Saturday (April 3). The top two teams in the regional final advance to nationals.
Thursday play-in
NC State v Western Michigan
Semifinal #1
[1] Florida
[4] Illinois
Central Michigan
Play-in Winner
Semifinal #2
[2] Minnesota
[3] Denver
Georgia
Oregon State
AA Individuals
Emily Shepard – NC State
Elizabeth Culton – North Carolina
Payton Murphy – Western Michigan
Event Individuals
VT – Anika Dujakovich – Nebraska; Chloe Negrete – NC State
UB – Kynsee Roby – Nebraska; Kinsey Davis – Nebraska; Katelyn Cox – NC State; Meredith Robinson – NC State
BB – Kynsee Roby – Nebraska; Kaitlyn Higgins – Nebraska; Kathryn Thaler – Nebraska; Chloe Negrete – NC State
FX – Chloe Negrete – NC State; Kylie Piringer – Nebraska; Isabel Goyco – TWU
**Event individuals include those from play-in teams so that if they happened to be eliminated in the play-in, they can still compete the next day in the hope of advancing to nationals, as individual qualification to nationals is based on the Friday results.
Continue reading 2021 Regionals Draw| Saturday, March 20 | Scores | Stream |
| 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT – Big Ten Championship Session #1 #26 Ohio State #31 Maryland #32 Penn State #36 Nebraska #42 Rutgers |
LINK | BTN |
| 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT – EAGL Championship Session #1 #27 NC State #40 North Carolina #49 George Washington |
LINK | ESPN3 |
| 2:00pm ET/11:00am PT – Big 12 Championship #1 Oklahoma #9 Denver #22 Iowa State @ #38 West Virginia |
LINK | ESPN2 |
| 2:00pm ET/11:00am PT – Pac-12 Championship Session #1 #24 Oregon State #37 Arizona #41 Washington #55 Stanford |
LINK | P12N |
| 2:00pm ET/11:00am PT – MAC Championship #25 Central Michigan #28 Kent State #29 Eastern Michigan @ #33 Western Michigan #34 Ball State #45 Northern Illinois #50 Bowling Green |
LINK | ESPN3 |
| 3:30pm ET/12:30pm PT – SEC Championship Session #1 #14 Kentucky #15 Auburn #23 Missouri |
LINK | SECN AA VT UB BB FX |
| 4:00pm ET/1:00pm PT – San Jose State @ Air Force | LINK | FREE |
| 6:00pm ET/3:00pm PT – Hamline @ UW-Stout | LINK | FREE |
| 6:30pm ET/3:30pm PT – Big Ten Championship Session #2 #3 Michigan @ #7 Minnesota #16 Illinois #18 Iowa |
LINK | BTN |
| 7:00pm ET/4:00pm PT – EAGL Championship Session #1 #29 Towson #39 Temple @ #47 Pittsburgh #52 LIU |
LINK | ESPN3 |
| 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT – SEC Championship Session #2 #1 Florida #4 LSU #8 Alabama #9 Arkansas |
LINK | SECN AA VT UB BB FX |
| 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT – Mountain Rim Championship #12 BYU #19 Boise State #20 Southern Utah @ #21 Utah State |
LINK | FREE |
| 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT – Pac-12 Championship Session #2 #5 Cal #6 Utah #11 Arizona State #13 UCLA |
LINK | P12N |
Deep breath. Let’s do this.
The first sessions of Big Tens (and no, I will not call it B1Gs, thank you very much) and EAGLs begin first. So there’s time to set the scene. Lots riding on the score Nebraska puts up early on as that will dictate what all the other 36-ish teams are looking for. Maryland and Penn State are also not totally out of the woods in that regard and are looking for a comfortable hit today to remove any doubt, but Nebraska is the most urgent case in the ER.
The minimum goal for Nebraska is 195.300, which will be enough to move ahead of New Hampshire and gain one spot of buffer room, but that in itself is just a minimum and not a “safe” score when factoring in what Arizona and Washington and West Virginia could do. Nebraska’s real goal will be to bust out for a 196 to put extreme pressure on the later teams.
North Carolina also begins in this first group, but as UNC is down in 40th, their fate is going to be determined by other teams. They need to get some huge score and then just hope that enough other teams miss.
So far I’m really enjoying the “everyone gets a 9.2” aesthetic of the Minnesota live scores test.
Continue reading Conference Championships Live Blog – March 20, 2021Conference championships mega-day will barrel itself into us tomorrow, so a few thoughts before that happens.
The Withdrawals
Because this has to be a section of the preview now. The big news coming out of the SEC Championship yesterday was the withdrawal of Georgia due to positive tests and contact tracing and whatnot. I know. This never would have happened with Suzanne. She would have given one look at that virus and sent it immediately to Sarah Patterson’s house in a disguise.
Georgia says it will be ready to go with a “full roster” for regionals, which are at Georgia. So…you better. Georgia’s like, “We can still host you Oklahoma…cough cough.” Given how quickly LSU bounced back from a similar scenario earlier in the season, it seems plausible that this won’t be a season-ending situation. It does, however, confirm that Georgia will be an unseeded team at regionals. UGA is currently tied with Illinois for 16th but behind Illinois on the tiebreak, now with no opportunity to change that. So that’s going to be a fun round of 32. As of right now, it would be Minnesota and Denver in the same regional semifinal as Georgia with only two teams advancing to the round of 16, though expect all this stuff to change after conference championships.
Today, New Hampshire joined Georgia in having to withdraw from the conference championships, which is ultimately a far more significant development because it could mean the abrupt and premature end of UNH’s season. Again. New Hampshire is currently ranked #35 and within the advancing spots, so will retain some hope heading into Saturday, but there are so many teams that can pass with even average performances at conference championships that it’s going to be a tough wait. Arizona just needs 195.175 to pass, and Nebraska just needs 195.300, Washington needs 195.325, West Virginia 195.550, and the list goes on. If two of them do it, New Hampshire is out.
But let’s get to the teams that are actually competing.
Continue reading Conference Championships Preview
