Of all the top teams, Nebraska gets the least notoriety.  They don’t often attract the big name or elite gymnasts, and (competing in the Big 12 until this year) they haven’t had the conference rivalries and built-in strength of schedule that give a team both identity and national attention.  With the rise of Oklahoma’s program, there was a budding opportunity for a strong, attention-getting rivalry between two of the best teams, but Nebraska’s move to the Big 10 limits that a little.  I still would like that rivalry to be cultivated, though, and seeing the two schools competing in a quad meet this year is a bit disappointing.  The presence of other teams (especially lower ranked ones) tends to mitigate the atmosphere and excitement of a rivalry.

Nebraska was able to beat both Florida and Utah in national semifinals last year by sticking landings and not giving away unnecessary tenths, even if they didn’t have the biggest difficulty or reputation.  This attitude and tenacity will have to continue in 2012 because there are significant questions about the depth of the team and how that depth will or will not be able to overcome some of their weaknesses, namely the beam.

As seen in the discussion of beam strength, Nebraska was the weakest of the top 10 last year when competing after a fall on the beam.  At championships, their highest score on beam was a 9.800.  In Super Six, they were competitive with third place Oklahoma on three events, but ended up .5 lower solely because of the beam.  With no standout performers and only 4 returners to the lineup, they will need to find bigger scores on this event from somewhere in this incoming freshman class.

There are five new freshmen this year, but the clear standout in the bunch is Jessie DeZiel.  Six months ago, she would have been considered just another one of the new L10s and wouldn’t have received much attention at all.  But after making the elite push to compete at Visa Championships in her home state, DeZiel found herself on the Pan Am team and performed very well.  In true gymnastics fan fashion, the narrative about DeZiel went from the condescension of “Aww, isn’t that sweet” when she made championships to the overreaction of “She’s the best gymnast on the Pan Am team” after she performed so well.  To be clear, she was not the best gymnast on a Pan Am team that included Shawn Johnson, Bridget Sloan, and Bridgette Caquatto (and she would be completely overlooked if she continued elite), but she did perform with exceptional poise and confidence in Guadalajara, which will serve her very well in NCAA.  Also, her Yurchenko double full is really quite excellent.  They will need her anchoring that event and replacing Erin Davis’s score.

In addition to DeZiel, Nebraska is bringing in Kailyn Hawkins, Amanda and Jennifer Lauer, and Desire’ (That’s an apostrophe, not a smudge) Stephens, all of whom are scholarship athletes and can be expected to contend for lineups.  Of this group, Hawkins has the biggest skill set.

Even though Nebraska is bringing in these five new freshman, the team is still smaller than most, having lost Erin Davis (she of the 10 on vault), Brittnee Habbib, Maria Scaffidi, and Maddie Steinauer — leaving them with 2 or 3 spots to fill on every event.  With 13 total gymnasts, including some non-competers, they will not have the 10-11 competitive routines on each event that many of the top schools will have to choose from, meaning they will have to put up a gymnast here and there whose goal is to manage instead of excel.

In fact, much like Michigan, the lack of depth became apparent during a recent scored intrasquad where some of the new freshmen did not show any gymnastics and the team showed only 6 floor routines. Nebraska might be safe enough for routine numbers if they were to keep the whole team healthy, but that never happens to anyone.  If they find themselves scraping the gym for routines, it will be down to veterans Lora Evenstad, Janelle Giblin, and Brittany Skinner (along with Jamie Schleppenbach’s vault) to carry the team into 9.9 territory with confidence and make up for some inexperienced scores in these lineups.

Because they have so many competing gymnasts to replace from last year’s team, it’s hard to envision Nebraska having a repeat 4th place performance.  The top schools are all trading up, increasing their scoring potential significantly from last year.  Nebraska will more likely be in the position of trying to tread water, focusing on replacing the scores they lost from last year instead of improving upon them.  They surprised in 2011 during a relatively weak year across the nation, but it will take an even bigger effort to do it again in 2012.

There are a lot of wonderful things to say about UCLA gymnastics.  The very best is that, no matter the situation, it’s always a show and they always commit to that show, a show complete with costumes, characters, motifs, and sometimes even a tragedy.

Yesterday, UCLA hosted the “Meets the Bruins” event.  It’s like an intrasquad, but with more greatness. Other schools show routines.  UCLA unveils performances.  Some people hate that about them.  These people are no fun, and I don’t want you hanging out with them anymore.

No show is complete without a grand entrance:

UCLA is posting a whole slew of videos at the BruinGymnastics youtube page, complete with an identifying bars skills tutorial (“Gienger!”).  Don’t try to watch the videos with that UCLA all-access player. It’s useless nonsense.

Because of their surprisingly weak performance in the national semifinals last year, it’s easy to forget that Oregon State was the in-form team and a popular dark horse pick heading into the postseason last year. They performed tremendously at the Pac-10 Championships, exhibiting well-polished gymnastics with confident landings to beat a Bruin team that was just starting to peak.  But it was that very confidence that deserted them during national semifinals.  The gymnastics got tense, and uncharacteristically weak meets from Britney Ranzy and Olivia Vivian put them just behind Utah and well behind their potential.

It would seem, then, that Oregon State should be a top 5 favorite in 2012 as long as they avoid a collapse during championships, but the off-season transfer of Britney Ranzy to LSU has dramatically changed the complexion of the team.  For the most part, Oregon State recruits and cultivates gymnasts with elegant line and clean gymnastics who excel on bars and beam but who lack the dynamics on the power events.  Ranzy filled a major hole on this team by bringing that raw power and scoring potential to vault and floor. She was sticking that Yurchenko full and scoring 9.9 almost every week.  Her two events were the biggest improvement between Oregon State 2010, a team that barely snuck through regionals on a tiebreak over a collapsed Georgia, and Oregon State 2011, the #3 regionals seed.  Without her (or the graduated Becky Colvin) the prospects on vault in particular look unfortunate.  They’ve had to lead off vault with 9.6s in the past, and we hope it doesn’t happen again.

Not to completely shortchange Oregon State, though, they do still have a number of impressive, high-scoring routines that should help them be competitive, namely on the uneven bars.  Leaders Olivia Vivian, Leslie Mak, and Makayla Stambaugh all bring crisp execution and confident swing to the event, giving the team a strong chance to retain the title of best bars team in the country.  They will need to put up 49.4s by the end of the season to help make up for vault.

Beam is a bit of a mixed bag for the Beavers, but less because of form and more because of depth and consistency.  Stambaugh is very strong on bars and floor and useful on vault, but her lack of consistency on beam makes her a less compelling choice.  Even when she hits, it’s a nervy nail biter, yet she had to be in the lineup last year.  Even so, it’s difficult to classify beam as a weakness for Oregon State when they have Leslie Mak anchoring.  Mak is among the very best beamers in the country and likely would have defeated Sam Peszek at event finals last year had she hit.  She makes it easy to ignore the fact that she has only a gainer full dismount and is fully deserving of 9.9s.

Mak, Stambaugh, and Vivian will be the backbone of the team in 2012, each competing on at least three events with Kelsi Blalock, Brittany Harris, and Stephanie McGregor filling in some other holes early in lineups and getting 9.800-9.850.  This isn’t quite enough to contend, and the team will have to find 2 vaults and preferably 2 floor routines from somewhere.  After the transfers of Ranzy and Leilani Alferos (to Cal), they brought in a bunch of new gymnasts to help fill out the team.  The freshman class totals 6 in all, but it’s hard to imagine any of them completely satisfying what the team needs.  The original NLI signers, Chelsea Tang and Cerise Witherby, would be expected to have the most impact as both have been successful at the JO level.  They will have the skill set for NCAA (unlike some of the walkons who have clean gymnastics but just can’t compete with difficulty) and can certainly make lineups for the team, though it would be hard to proclaim them future scoring leaders.

Tanya Chaplin has shown an ability in the past to get excellent gymnastics out of unheralded gymnasts, and she will need that this year to prevent Oregon State from being a one-event wonder that has trouble contending with the better teams in the power department.  It will be interesting to watch for her January lineups to see who she is trying out and who is rising to the challenge.

Utah and Michigan are winning the fan relations battle so far this season by providing free live coverage of their intrasquads tonight.