Full week 8 rankings

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Oklahoma didn’t change its qualifying score much this week after a meh-for-Oklahoma 197.650 at the Nadia meet, but the big issue at play is the absence of Maggie Nichols because of an ankle injury, with KJ not expecting her back “for a while.” While Oklahoma is certainly still able to score well without Nichols, her absence depresses the team’s scoring potential to a more pedestrian (and potentially beatable) level.

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With its 198, Florida closed the gap a little on Oklahoma this week and, most importantly, has a chance to pass Oklahoma for #1 this weekend if things go just right. It’s not the most likely outcome—Florida would have to go 198.050 to have a shot a tying, while Oklahoma would have to score under 197.975—but Florida is also going to Georgia on Friday, which I expect to be a “Utah/UCLA is a role model” type situation. So it’s in play.

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It’s difficult to pretend to take a rankings post seriously after the abomination that was the scoring in the final rotation last night (if the judges don’t take these scores seriously, then why should I come in here and be like, “Well, if they can score 198 again…” like any of this is real or matters), but UCLA moves ahead of Utah despite the loss on the strength of a better supply of 197s throughout the season so far. UCLA will be looking for a score greater than 197.200 this week to ensure staying at #3 next Monday.

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Utah is in a much, much better position for qualifying score after the meet that shall not be named. (I’ll let you in on a secret—the meet wasn’t that good. That was medium quality for top-5 teams and Utah was weaker on several events than the meet before, including beam despite the program record. The only reason it’s being treated as this amazing meet is that the judges tried to make a show instead of doing their jobs.) Despite being in a strong position, Utah will still need to replace some of these low 197s if this ranking is to be maintained. It’s possible for Utah to get up to #3 next week, but that is dependent on UCLA’s performance.

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For portions of the meet this weekend, LSU got to experience how the other half lives in terms of judging, so the team won’t exactly be crying a river over a lower-than-intended score because it wasn’t really a problem meet. Not an ideal performance, but not a red flag. LSU is still on an improving trajectory, though is also running out of time to get rid of those lower scores, a task that will be necessary to get that top-4 ranking.

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Basically all your worst fears for how Denver would do without Lynnzee Brown were realized this week with a counting 8 on bars and counting 9.5s on vault and beam for a 195.175 total. That score really shouldn’t be the shape of things to come—a mid or high 196 would have been doable in that meet with a hit and remains very doable next week. Still, getting totals that improve the qualifying score in a significant way is going to be a challenging task, which makes Denver vulnerable to getting passed by the next couple teams in the coming weeks.

Continue reading NCAA Week 8 Rankings →