FINAL SEASON RANKINGS
2018 – 1st
2017 – 4th
2016 – 5th
2015 – 11th
2014 – 8th
2013 – 4th
2012 – 3rd
2011 – 2nd
2010 – 1st
2009 – 7th

THE STORY
Let’s be honest, for all of UCLA’s improvements in the 2018 season, none of us actually expected the Bruins to win the championship. They were supposed to finish 2nd or 3rd, make great strides to set up a title run in 2019, do a life lesson or two, and close the book on an altogether successful season. That’s not what happened. Christmas came early.

Winning a title bestows de facto favorite status the following year, yet UCLA will know that the 2018 victory did in fact come early. It was an upset, a phenomenal two-event performance on the day but an untenable strategy to maintain if this is to become a dynasty. “We’ll be ranked 3rd all year long, be kind of blah in the first two rotations of the final, and then Peng will get a 20, and wheeee!” isn’t exactly how you draw it up.

Now that this UCLA group has won a title, there’s no going back in terms of expectations, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t improvements to be made. The 2019 roster was always supposed to be better than 2018’s team and does have realistic areas where it can aim higher, scoring weaknesses from 2018 to resolve, and lost meets from last season to win this time around so that a potential title this year would not be an upset. It would be normal.

You guys, a tradition is over. We can’t talk about Kyla Ross’s mythical 10.0 start on vault in the UCLA preview this year because it’s not mythical anymore. We saw it for realsies at Meet the Bruins as part of what will be an upgraded vault lineup in 2019. With just two 10.0s, UCLA’s 2018 vault team didn’t have the start values to get the necessary 49.4s in a postseason-scoring context, but this year’s lineup looks significantly more competitive. Continue reading 2019 Preview – UCLA Bruins →

FINAL SEASON RANKINGS
2018 – 2nd
2017 – 1st
2016 – 1st
2015 – 3rd
2014 – 1st
2013 – 2nd
2012 – 7th
2011 – 3rd
2010 – 2nd
2009 – 10th

THE STORY
Oklahoma is really thrilled about finishing second last year. So much fun with second place. La la la. Everything’s great.

Obviously, they’ve been accidentally shattering wine glasses about it all offseason—after spending the entire 2018 season as the best team in the country, breaking the all-time RQS mark, and then recording the 6th-best score in Super Six history only to be defeated on the day by the smallest of margins. As such, it’s not really a postseason that Oklahoma will look back on in a “what went wrong” kind of way—other than the mistake not to hack the NCAA in the dead of night so that they could have ended on beam instead of UCLA.

The finish in 2018 also makes the story for Oklahoma’s 2019 season fairly straightforward. The Sooners did everything except win the title last season, so this year, rectifying that with a championship will be the only satisfying result, as well as a very attainable one. Anything less will feel like a letdown.

In 2019, Oklahoma will once again march toward that long-sought holy grail, a postseason vault lineup of entirely 10.0 starts. It hasn’t ever happened before but once again looks possible for Oklahoma this season. Continue reading 2019 Preview – Oklahoma Sooners →

FINAL SEASON RANKINGS
2018 – 3rd
2017 – 3rd
2016 – 4th
2015 – 1st
2014 – 1st
2013 – 1st
2012 – 2nd
2011 – 7th
2010 – 5th
2009 – 4th

THE STORY
It’s tough to sneer at third place. That’s a solid result any team would be pleased with, and Florida has achieved that in each of the last two seasons, finishing 2018 as the #1 team in the SEC after out-touching LSU by an eighth of a tenth (FUN WITH NATIONALS SCORING) in Super Six.

But. In all three seasons of the Rowland Era so far, Florida’s roster has been talented enough to win the national championship (never more so than last season), and it has yet to happen. That’s why Florida won’t be over the moon about these third-place finishes. We all expect even better than third place from this roster. In 2019, the same is true. Despite the admittedly massive scoring losses from last season’s squad, Florida still boasts an insane team. Thomas? Baumann? Boren? Hundley? Gowey? Johnson-Scharpf? On names alone, you’d pick this roster over any other in the country, including Oklahoma and UCLA.

Still, we can’t go on names alone, or talent alone. This Florida team—now no longer featuring any team members from the Rhonda championship years—must prove that it can transfer its talent from an on-paper championship to an actual championship. Otherwise, we’re looking at another year of close-but-not-quite.

Florida has a ton of work ahead in order to retain its status as one of the top vaulting teams, the Gators having to do without four of their five best vaults from 2018—losing McMurtry, Slocum, and Baker to graduation and Foberg to injury. Continue reading 2019 Preview – Florida Gators →

You can find the individual previews for the top-finishing Pac-12 teams from 2018 at the links here.

UCLA (coming soon)
Utah
Cal

But for today, let’s play the lineup game with the remaining Pac-12 teams.

Washington will hope to trot out a new-look vault lineup in 2019 with a couple freshmen who have competed 10.0 starts in JO competition (Cunningham with a 1.5, Brooks with an Omel) and Geneva Thompson, who sports a strong full in her return from injury. All crucial pieces in the project to get the lineup out of the 9.7s.

Washington returns Monica Riley, who has emerged as a bars star in the past year and will be relied on again for 9.9s atop a lineup that should be pretty consistent with last season’s group. Washington will hope that the spot vacated by Burleson can be filled by Meaghan Ruttan, who showed a lot of potential on bars in her Canadian elite days. Continue reading 2019 Preview – Pac-12 Roundup →

You can find the individual previews for the top-finishing SEC teams from 2018 at the links here.

Florida (coming soon)
LSU
Georgia
Alabama

But for today, let’s play the lineup game with the remaining SEC teams.

Arkansas still won’t have a surplus of options on vault this year but should be more comfortable than the “wait, do we even have 5?” days of last season. Amanda Elswick will bring a lineup-leading 1.5, McGlone will be back with her full, and Hambrick will bring at least a full, all of which should help bump up the scoring.

Arkansas will have some work to do on bars, the team’s highest-scoring piece last year but an event where the absences of Speed and Wellick will be felt the most acutely. Garner is the best bars worker on the team, I expect to see Laird and Shaffer back, and Yamzon does the AA every week. Burton didn’t do bars last year but was a constant in the lineup in 2017. Of the freshmen, I’m excited to see what Lovett can potentially deliver here. Continue reading 2019 Preview – SEC Roundup →

FINAL SEASON RANKING
2018 – 8th
2017 – 6th
2016 – 3rd
2015 – 4th
2014 – 4th
2013 – 3rd
2012 – 1st
2011 – 1st
2010 – 3rd
2009 – 2nd

THE STORY
Alabama isn’t super happy with what’s been happening. The last two seasons have produced Alabama’s weakest finishes in a decade and rank 33rd and 34th on the list of Alabama’s results from 37 seasons of NCAA gymnastics. The dismissal of Bryan Raschilla immediately after nationals sent the message to all of us that the status quo isn’t going to be good enough anymore.

After all, Alabama’s 8th-place performance at nationals last year wasn’t the result of a random miss that can be chalked up as “just one of those things.” It didn’t include a fall, nor did it include a single counting score under 9.800. Alabama hit, still missed Super Six by four tenths, and (potentially more crushing to an Alabama fan) lost to Georgia.

That said, I’m quite comfortable ranking Alabama as at least a top-8 team again this year, and Alabama will enter the season as a favorite to advance to nationals. By the second half of 2018, Alabama was securely packed in that 6-7 ranking area, and while the team has lost two essential contributors in Winston and Guerrero (and all its 9.9 RQSs), it can look to Emily Gaskins and Shallon Olsen to make up a fair chunk of those scores and will present a team deep with 9.850s once again.

Still, top 8 is a pedestrian goal for Alabama. That should be a DUH. It might not be, but it should be. A more Alabama-level goal is making the team final, which now requires being in the top 4. Based on the level of competition this season, that’s a tough ask.

Alabama will have three definite 10.0 starts in the vault lineup this year, certainly not the most we’ll see but still enough to stay competitive. It’s what Alabama showed most of last season, and I would expect 2019’s roster to keep pace with that level of vaulting. Continue reading 2019 Preview – Alabama Crimson Tide →

FINAL SEASON RANKINGS
2018 – 7th
2017 – 12th
2016 – 6th
2015 – 9th
2014 – 5th
2013 – 6th
2012 – 11th
2011 – 9th
2010 – 13th
2009 – 1st

THE STORY
Thus far, the story for Georgia has been the hacksaw taken to the roster following the 2018 season, trimming all but five essential gymnasts and bringing in as many new people as humanly possible. Kupets apparently took that assignment a little too seriously because she had the baby yesterday. Add her to the roster.

What’s also true amidst this reinvention, however, is that Georgia’s 2019 lineups will probably end up being more familiar than you’re expecting. The five who do return from last season are all multi-event contributors who will deliver over half the routines in 2019, potentially as many as two-thirds if the freshmen take some time to get going.

With all the most important routines returning along with expected lineup upgrades, hopes for Georgia’s 2019 performance are high. Georgia wildly exceeded expectations to finish 7th last season, and this year’s team is categorically better than that team, so why not improve on 7th?

At the same time, Georgia spent most ranking weeks last season languishing in the bad half of the teens. That, more than the final ranking of 7th, reflects the team’s prevailing 2018 quality, so while everyone expects big improvement in 2019, that improvement could come in the form of maintaining a ranking of 7th-9th all season long and jockeying for a spot at nationals.

And that would be a huge improvement. That would be a massive  sign of progress for a team that’s trying to return to the top echelon, though if you go only by final results, it may not seem like much of a change.

Vault proved to be Georgia’s weak event in 2018 in both depth and scoring potential, the team ultimately putting up a lineup of two nationally competitive vaults and just hoping to get by with three other scores. Because of those struggles, 2019’s vaulting looks to provide Georgia’s biggest single-event improvement. Rachael DTY Lukacs should become the strongest vaulter in the lineup almost immediately, allowing Sydney Snead and her 1.5 to be among the important vaults, rather than being the entire lineup. Continue reading 2019 Preview – Georgia Bulldogs →