Before the NCAA season begins, it’s time for the now-annual venture into the murky world of NCAA scoring for those who might want to know a little more about what’s actually going on behind that bonkers 9.950 that just got thrown. Fair warning: you’ll be happier if you don’t.
For the full experience, be sure to check out the posts on vault, bars, and floor.
Composing a routine
Routine requirements
- At minimum, an NCAA routine must include 3 A-valued elements, 3 B-valued elements, and 2 C-valued elements.
That is a very basic standard that college gymnasts are able to achieve quite comfortably. You don’t have to worry about it. Gymnasts must also fulfill a series of special composition requirements, each worth 0.2. On beam, those five requirements are
1 – One acrobatic series. This means two acrobatic flight elements, “directly connected,” with at least one of the elements being C value or higher.
By far the most common acrobatic flight series you’ll see is the back handspring + layout stepout (loso) series.
It’s the classic NCAA series, and you’re probably sick of it, or will be.
You’ll notice I put “directly connected” in quotes in the above rule because of snottiness. An acrobatic series should have to be directly connected and generate rebounding speed in one direction. But that is not actually required.
Rather, forward + backward series may also be used to fulfill this requirement, the most common of which is the front aerial + back handspring series. Everyone has decided to agree that this also counts as a directly connected acro series, despite being just two different acro elements performed in the vague vicinity of one another.