Links will continue to be added as they become available.

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COVID Withdrawals

• None so far!

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How to Watch

Meets marked ESPN2 will be broadcast live on TV and can also be streamed online at the link provided for those who have a login from a TV provider subscription that includes those networks, which is all of them.

Meets marked SEC Network and BTN will be broadcast live on TV and can also be streamed online at the link provided for those who have a login from a TV provider subscription that includes those networks, which is not all of them.

Meets marked P12 Network will be broadcast live on TV—or online on Pac-12 Insider—and can be streamed at the link provided for those who have a log-in from a participating TV provider subscription, which is almost none of them. The Pac-12 Network provides a free international feed on YouTube for those outside the US.

Meets marked BTN+ are streamed through a paid subscription to BTN+ ($15/month).

Meets marked SEC+ and ACC+ may be streamed on WatchESPN for those who have a log-in from their TV provider subscription—U-Verse, Spectrum, DirecTV, Dish, Xfinity, Verizon, Sling, Hulu, or YouTube TV.

Meets marked ESPN+ may be streamed through a separate paid subscription to the ESPN+ streaming service ($7/month).

Meets marked ESPN3 may be streamed on WatchESPN for those who have a log-in from a participating internet service provider, which is all of them.

Meets marked Free Stream are free at the link provided.

Meets marked $ Stream require a subscription to a school-specific streaming service.

Meets marked YouTube are…on YouTube.

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Week 5 Top 25

Note: These rankings include the meets from Monday because, you know, they’re already happened. They will therefore differ from the official week 5 rankings, which do not include Monday meets.

1.	Michigan	198.035
2.	Oklahoma	197.640
3.	Utah	197.540
4.	Florida	197.535
5.	LSU	197.258
6.	Minnesota	197.225
7.	Auburn	197.185
8.	Alabama	197.090
9.	Missouri	196.994
10.	Kentucky	196.925
11.	Cal	196.819
12.	Denver	196.790
13.	Oregon State	196.625
14.	Arkansas	196.544
15.	Michigan State	196.470
16.	UCLA	196.300
17.	Iowa	196.242
18.	BYU	196.175
19.	Stanford	196.063
20.	Arizona State	196.050
21.	Utah State	196.010
22.	Ohio State	195.985
23.	Western Michigan	195.800
24.	Boise State	195.688
25.	Southern Utah	195.650
26.	North Carolina	195.545
27.	Illinois	195.500
28.	Towson	195.338
29.	Kent State	195.331
30.	Georgia	195.300
31.	West Virginia	195.269
32.	Penn State	195.255
33.	San Jose State	195.238
34.	Washington	195.200
35.	Nebraska	195.145
36.	NC State	195.131

What Is a Good Score?

Michigan’s basically unprecedented 198.525 over the weekend—the highest team score since 2004 and the highest road score ever recorded in college gymnastics—has reignited my question of what actually constitutes a competitive score in the 2022 season. When Utah is scoring 197.7 with a counting fall and Oklahoma is scoring 198 even with vault rotation that tied for their worst score on that event in nine years, it’s clear the typical expectations need not apply. 

But what are we actually dealing with here? How good is a 197 this year? Is that helpful? What are teams trying for?

This season, for the first time ever, it’s expected to take an NQS over 196 just to finish in the top 36 and qualify to regionals. Scores are on pace to obliterate last season’s cutoff of 195.769, and the NC State team currently sitting on the bubble has an average of 195.131, a score that would have seen them rank 8 spots higher at this point in each of the last three seasons. Based on how things have changed in the last 10 years between now and the end of the season for teams in this area of the rankings, that would put this season’s projected regionals cutoff somewhere in the vicinity of 196.300.

Similarly, the current scores would indicate an NQS of roughly 197.150 required to finish in the top 16 (seeded at regionals), and an NQS of 197.900 to finish in the top 8 (seeded to advance to nationals). Right now, I’m leaning toward the lower end of the range with these because we have one fewer week in the regular season this year compared to most years and because of COVID meet cancellations mucking up the plans (and because 197.900????????), but we shall see.

With those benchmarks in mind, I’m giving teams an X for every score they currently have that reaches each level. As long as NQS is done the normal way this season, you’re going to want to end up six weeks from now with at least four countable scores at the desired level to feel safe and dandy. Next week, many teams should have enough scores to start doing real NQS projections.

	Top 8 Score 197.900	Top 16 Score 197.150	Top 36 Score 196.300
Michigan	XXXX	XXXXX	XXXXX
Oklahoma	XXX	XXXX	XXXXX
Utah		XXXX	XXXXX
Florida	X	XXX	XXXXX
LSU	X	X	XXX
Minnesota	X	X	XXX
Auburn		XXXX	XXXX
Alabama		XX	XXXX
Missouri		X	XXXX
Kentucky		XX	XXX
Cal		X	XXXX
Denver		X	XXXX
Oregon State		X	XXX
Arkansas		X	XXX
Michigan State			XXXX
UCLA		X	XXX
Iowa			XX
BYU			XXX
Stanford
Arizona State			X
Utah State			XXX
Ohio State			XX
Western Michigan
Boise State			X
Southern Utah			XX
North Carolina			X
Illinois			X
Towson			X
Kent State
Georgia
West Virginia
Penn State			X
San Jose State			X
Washington
Nebraska			X
NC State
Arizona
Iowa State
George Washington
Ball State
Northern Illinois			X

Links will continue to be added as they become available.

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COVID Weather Withdrawals

• Arkansas against West Virginia on Friday has been canceled for weather. Instead, Arkansas will host SEMO on Sunday, after SEMO had to withdraw from its own Friday meet.
• Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s meet against TWU has been rescheduled for Sunday, and the time of Brockport’s meet against Rhode Island has been changed.

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How to Watch

Meets marked ESPN2 will be broadcast live on TV and can also be streamed online at the link provided for those who have a login from a TV provider subscription that includes those networks, which is all of them.

Meets marked ESPNU, SEC Network, and BTN will be broadcast live on TV and can also be streamed online at the link provided for those who have a login from a TV provider subscription that includes those networks, which is not all of them.

Meets marked P12 Network will be broadcast live on TV or on Pac-12 Insider and can be streamed online at the link provided for those who have a log-in from a participating TV provider subscription, which is almost none of them. The Pac-12 Network provides a free international feed on YouTube for those outside the US.

Meets marked BTN+ are streamed through a paid subscription to BTN+ ($15/month).

Meets marked SEC+ and ACC+ may be streamed on WatchESPN for those who have a log-in from their TV provider subscription—U-Verse, Spectrum, DirecTV, Dish, Xfinity, Verizon, Sling, Hulu, or YouTube TV.

Meets marked ESPN+ may be streamed through a separate paid subscription to the ESPN+ streaming service ($7/month).

Meets marked ESPN3 may be streamed on WatchESPN for those who have a log-in from a participating internet service provider, which is all of them.

Meets marked BYUTV will be broadcast live on TV on the BYU Network or streamed for free at the link provided. (You have to make a profile and log in—ugh—but after that it’s free.)

Meets marked BSOK+ are available on Bally Sports and streaming at the link provided for those who have a log-in from a participating TV provider subscription and whose regional network is showing the meet.

Meets marked Free Stream are free at the link provided.

Meets marked $ Stream require a subscription to a school-specific streaming service.

Meets marked YouTube are…on YouTube.

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Week 4 Top 25

1.	Michigan	197.913
2.	Oklahoma	197.538
3.	Utah	197.488
4.	Florida	197.475
5.	Minnesota	197.275
6.	Auburn	197.044
7.	Denver	196.956
8.	LSU	196.900
9.	Alabama	196.894
10.	Cal	196.783
11.	Missouri	196.775
12.	Kentucky	196.750
13.	Oregon State	196.375
13.	Arkansas	196.375
15.	Michigan State	196.369
16.	Iowa	196.265
17.	Western Michigan	196.108
18.	BYU	196.044
19.	Stanford	196.000
20.	Utah State	195.906
21.	Arizona State	195.883
22.	UCLA	195.850
23.	Ohio State	195.813
24.	Southern Utah	195.675
25.	North Carolina	195.600

Life at the Top

• The 2022 NCAA season has officially entered its 198 era, with both #4 Florida and #2 Oklahoma racing past that mark after #1 Michigan originally broke the seal the previous Monday.
• Why we should all be strapping down the furniture and hiding our valuables: Florida recorded its 6th-highest score in history—198.250—despite a kinda-bad floor rotation, while Oklahoma went 198.200 with three Yurchenko fulls and zero Olivia Trautmans, and Michigan went 197.925 with only 50% charge on its iWojcik. Oklahoma’s 198.500 from 2015, which stands as the highest team score of the post-2004 era, is quaking.
• Meanwhile, this #3 Utah team has the highest scores through four meets across all of Utah gymnastics history, and it’s like…but wait, is 197.675 still good? Or nah? This week, Bev Plocki told BTN that she’s never had a team start this well. Yes, no one ever has. Michigan’s 197.913 is the highest average ever at this point in the season. 

Drop That Score

• #7 Denver – While 196.625 isn’t really the kind of score that’s going to help a team to a top-16 seeding this season, that was not the devastating part of Denver’s loss to Oklahoma this weekend. The season-ending injury to Lynnzee Brown ruined everything, globally. While Denver’s small roster should still have the personnel to fill in—more will be asked of gymnasts like Casali and the first years—those are going to be in 9.8s instead of…9.975s, inflicting unavoidable damage on the team score. Denver will, however, take some solace from how competitively the team was still able to score last time this happened.
  
• #8 LSU – As the very top teams move into the 198s, and the next tier starts getting their 197s, LSU will view this week’s 196.850 as another miss. Multi-event rust (and not having Bryant or Johnson on floor) was apparent in the performance following the team’s two-meet COVID hiatus. LSU will have the unusual experience on Saturday of being the numerical underdog when welcoming Auburn to town but will look to that meet as an opportunity to reassert the traditional hierarchy.
  
• #13 Arkansas – For a second meet in three, bars issues saw Arkansas come up with a prefer-to-drop score of 196.475, despite notching an all-time beam record. It’s currently that home 197.200 from week 2 keeping Arkansas’s average afloat, and with a road-heavy schedule to end the season, the team will look to the next couple weeks as critical for racking up some juicy home numbers. 
  

Queens of Chaos

• #22 UCLA – For a second-straight week, UCLA’s performance was better than expected given the circumstances and showed improvement, especially on beam, but was still not a viable counting score for a team of this talent level. While UCLA’s feeble performance in the “coaching the person, not the athlete” department this preseason has taken center stage and drastically lowered expectations, this is still a roster that—on paper—should be the match of Utah. But as we see Utah sitting in the top 4, Cal reasserting its position at #2 in the conference with a 197.350 this week, and Oregon State already getting 197, UCLA just looks farther and farther behind.
  
• #32 Georgia – Well, it was only two falls on beam this week. And the fact that we’re hailing that as a victory shows exactly where expectations for Georgia are right now. Georgia made some huge improvements to get out of the 194 doldrums this week for a 196.100, but that was still the lowest score in the conference. And just as the team is starting to pull out a “beating LSU on vault” kind of performance, the injury to Rachael Lukacs is exactly what they could not afford.

Records and Almost Records

• #4 Florida tied two event records this week, going 49.725 on bars and 49.700 on beam. 
• #6 Auburn kept up its 2nd-best-score-in-program-history trend by setting another new 2nd-best mark, this time a 197.525 in defeating Alabama. Up next, the 197.750 set in 2015. Are we allowed to declare this Auburn’s best team ever after one month?
• #12 Kentucky recovered from an iffy start to the season by making comfortable work of Missouri and scoring 197.450, which ranks as the #5 score in Kentucky history.
• #13 Arkansas finished strong in the loss to Florida with a new beam record, 49.475 in that final rotation.
• #15 Michigan State continued its excellent start by putting up the #2 score in program history with 196.775 in the loss to Michigan. The MSU vault record of 49.375 has stood since 1996, making it one of the oldest records in NCAA. Just for reference.
• #16 Iowa solved the bars problems that had plagued the early meets to go 49.175 there, en route to a 196.825, the #5 score in team history.
• #17 Western Michigan went 196.100 this week, which ranks 3rd all time, and in the process set a new beam record with 49.165.
• #33 Ball State also set a new beam record this week with 49.150, which helped the team to a 195.850 total, the 2nd-best all time.
• #53 LIU recorded its 2nd-best score ever this week as well with a 193.850 despite counting a fall on vault, mostly thanks to 49.200 on bars, the team’s highest-ever score on any event.
• In DIII action, #67 Brockport set a new bars record at 48.425, and #68 UW-Oshkosh traveled to Eastern Michigan for that DI goodness and got its 2nd-best score ever at 191.650, along with a new vault record of 47.975.