NCAA gymnastics. Like a pearl in a mud factory. That’s not an expression, but it should be.
It’s coming. Kind of not that soon, but it’s still coming. The excitement is starting to build. Bridget Sloan is so excited she’s doing double layouts about it. I agree, Bridget. I agree.
And yet, there’s still so much waiting to do. We have over three whole months until the first meets begin (and a whole World Championship of Extreme Ankle Wrapping to get through first—beginning this week!), but we can start to smell it. The dust clouds are gathering. The schedules are being released.
We’re still waiting on a number of schools to get with the program. I’m not naming names (Big Ten), but you need to get those schedules out yesterday. Even so, enough schools have released their competition slates for 2015 for it to make sense to put together my annual season schedule. I’ll continue adding teams over the next month as the final schedules are released to us lowly plebs.
The full composite schedule for D1 and D2 teams can be found at the tab above (for easy reference throughout the preseason and season). Or just use THIS LINK. I have capitalized that for no reason. It felt like the thing to do, but I didn’t mean to holler. I’m sorry.
All the usual disclaimers apply. Many teams have not released their schedules yet, and many of the days and times could change, especially as TV schedules are made and adjusted, particularly for the Pac-12 Network. (Do we know what the SEC Network plan is yet and how much coverage they are taking on?)
The current schedules released by the schools also feature all the usual contradictions in time zones (since apparently we don’t teach that at colleges) and meet participation (where six different teams think they’re all competing in the same quad meet), but we’ll get all that figured out as we go.
Once we get closer to the season, I’ll do a quick-reference, greatest hits version of the schedule to isolate the top meets, but for now, enjoy the behemoth.
So, Sarah Patterson retired. That happened today. Everyone wear a houndstooth blouse and talk about how winning the SEC title is harder than winning the national title as a tribute.
I was completely caught off guard by this one, and it comes with more of a sour note and less of a celebratory one than we’d usually have for the retirement of a member of the coaching Mount Olympus because it’s clear she’s not retiring of her own choice. As outlined in the announcement, a series of knee replacement surgeries will take her out of action for the next year, so she has decided to give herself a medical retirement rather than redshirt the season.
We know her health issues must be serious and urgent for her to make this kind of immediate and dramatic decision. When I first saw the headline about Sarah’s retirement, I assumed she was announcing a retirement plan, like she would leave at the end of the 2015 season so she could do a whole farewell tour where all the other coaches give her flowers and say nice things about her and create tribute videos. Obviously, that would have happened if she were leaving on chosen terms.
The head coaching legends are abandoning us. We do have Marsden now and forever, and D-D Breaux signed a new contract, so they’re still flying the flag for the 3-decade team. You know D-D will be coaching until she’s 295 years old, just to prove a point. She’ll be nothing but a brain in a jar off to the side of the gym, yet no one will doubt who’s in charge. But with neither Suzanne nor Sarah around anymore, there’s a major void on the acidic rivalry, dramatic personality, and controversial gossip fronts. Let this be a memo to all our Rhondas, KJs, and Dannas to pick it up. Yes, you’re all very pleasant and professional and good at your jobs. Snore.
It’s helpful that ESPN made the Sarah and Suzanne documentary recently because that effectively covers the legacy portion of Sarah’s career. Even if I’ve never been rah-rah Sarah or rah-rah Alabama, the sport would be so much weaker without her and David’s work at Alabama. College gymnastics wouldn’t be remotely as healthy or interesting.
And now we have so much more to talk about when it comes to Alabama and 2015. All eyes on the Tide. There was already a workable chain of succession in place at Alabama, and assistant Dana Duckworth will now take over as the head coach. Because Dana is already such a crucial part of the program and has been there for a while, there’s a tendency to think that things will just carry on pretty much as usual, but . . . see Clark, Jay. We all lived through the trauma and know it’s not that simple.
Just like Georgia in 2009 with that hugely talented and influential class that graduated the same year Suzanne retired, Alabama also has a significant group that left after the 2014 season in the Jacob, Milliner, DeMeo crew. The Tide will be a very different team next year in every way. It has to be. Expect some growing pains, especially early on, as happens when an assistant coach must become a head coach and suddenly have her fingers in all the different pies. Some adapt better than others, as we know.
The world won’t be expected of Dana right away. She’ll have some leeway, and if Alabama is able to keep this string of top finishes going in the 2015 season, that will be seen as a bonus. If the attendance, boosting, etc. continues at the same rate, that will certainly help. But I would imagine the leash will still be fairly short when it comes to performance. As we know, for a program where the stakes are higher than they are at most schools, consecutive years of results below expectations are tough to endure for a coach who doesn’t have the legacy and reputation. That’s especially true if this decision had to be rushed or if this was something Sarah specifically fought for and advocated rather than a decision made over time by people sitting around and saying things like “do our due diligence” and other verbal catastrophes.
I can’t help but keep comparing this to Jay taking over at Georgia for 2010, but in a number of ways I do expect a smoother transition than we saw at Georgia. The cult of Alabama gymnastics has always been less about Sarah than the cult of Georgia gymnastics was about Suzanne. It’s just the nature of their personalities. Alabama fans love and respect Sarah, but I don’t think we’ll hear as many “Well, she’s certainly no Sarah” complaints about Dana. Unless the results plummet. Then we’ll hear it.
We know Alabama won’t be the same without their legend of a coach, but the core identity of the team shouldn’t change all that much. Obviously, the choreography will stay exactly the same. And because Dana and Bryan Raschilla are sticking around, I also wouldn’t expect the kind of exodus of verbal commitments that we recently saw at Georgia and often see when there is a total coaching upheaval. My guess is that they’ll predominately stay with Bama. But that will be something to watch over the next year or so, as will the level of Sarah’s involvement. Will she still advise and linger, or will she remove herself entirely? I think she would have to remove herself, otherwise there would be way too many head coaches banging around, which is trouble.
The problem is that a huge bombshell transition like this makes me excited to see how it plays out next season. And it’s only July. Now we need an elite bombshell to help us refocus on the present again, at least for the moment. I have some nominees.
It’s that time of year again, the time of elite thinking. The 2014 NCAA season is well behind us, and it’s not really healthy to start thinking about the 2015 season in any depth for at least another three or four months (lying). So, it’s once again time for my annual attempt to return my attention to the elite scene, with all its D scores and team selections and switch ring full turns, and dive in feet first. (I’ve never been much of a diver, so headfirst seems inadvisable. Even though that’s the expression, I’m not comfortable with it, and it should change.)
As we enter the second year post-Olympics, we’re starting to move into that meaty area at the center of the quad where things start to get a little more real. In the first year of a quad, we can only learn so much. It’s a year of posturing, where we just sort of quaintly applaud people who have decided to stick around but can’t make any real conclusions about the future. It’s so hard to keep up for a full quad, and what seems like a given in year one is often obsolete by year four. Just ask Ana Porgras and Rebecca Bross about that one.
True story: I forgot Ana Porgras’s name a few months ago. I was like, “Who was that good Romanian? The one with the face?”
But as we move into the second year, we start to wonder about who’s actually in this thing, not just to hang around the edge of a Worlds team here or there but to be a major player. Now the ramshackle, debt-ridden Rio venues become a glinting tease shining on the periphery of every conversation. It’s not close enough to be a thing, not nearly, but if you’re a gymnastics fan, you find yourself absentmindedly forming possible World and Olympic teams while chopping vegetables, or taking a shower, or drinking the blood of your enemies, knowing it’s too early and that none of these people will even have working bones anymore by the time 2016 rolls around, but still resculpting and reimagining the picture with the emergence of every new Gowey of the month.
But should we entertain that taunting Rio glint, or shut it out? How much is year 2 really relevant to year 4 of a quad? I don’t have any grand conclusions because every team is different and every quad is different, but it’s worth looking at how the years compare as we progress through a quad, keeping in mind how much things tend to change, or in specific cases, stay the same. In that spirit, I took a look back at 2010 Worlds and compared those teams to the 2012 Olympic teams to get some idea of how things progressed from year 2 to year 4.
For the most part, the top teams returned 2 members from their 2010 Worlds teams to the 2012 Olympics, which was the case for Russia, Romania, Italy, and Germany. The US and Canada returned just one member from their 2010 teams (Aly Raisman for the US and Kristina Vaculik for Canada, with a little Stanford stint thrown in the center there).
So it’s not exactly easy to remain relevant for a team even for three years running. And the people from 2010 who did manage to also make 2012 teams were big stars for their teams. They were the obvious choices who were mega-locks if healthy: Mustafina, Izbasa, Ferrari, Tweddle, Seitz. Of course they’re making the Olympics.
What’s interesting about these gymnasts who were already seniors in 2010 and stuck it out through 2012 is that their difficulty changed very little in the intervening years, putting up nearly identical D Scores in 2010 and 2012. The variation was usually just a tenth or two, nothing big. Mustafina, for instance, stayed very steady with her D Scores, adding a little on bars and shaving off a little on beam. She did have a net loss because she was no longer able to do the Y2.5 after that vault tore her leg off and used it to air-guitar “Another One Bites the Dust” at 2011 Euros, but other than that she was very constant. That’s true of many, many who stayed around: Seitz, Afanasyeva, Chelaru, Tanaka, Chusovitina, obviously. One or two tenths here and there. They didn’t continue pushing the difficulty with any significance between 2010 and 2012. And it’s because they didn’t need to. Either they were pretty maxed out already, like Tweddle on bars (who added two tenths, and what more could she even add after that?), or too touch-and-go with injury to risk upgrading, or able to rest easy in the knowledge that they were team locks and only had to show up to make it without needing to upgrade.
I suppose the lesson from this is not to count too heavily on upgrades in the coming years from people who are already seniors now. Most major players on the international scene didn’t during the last quad. But it did happen, and Aly Raisman is a great example.
Of all the people who made both the 2010 and 2012 teams, she blew everyone out of the water in terms of upgrades. It’s not even close. Like almost laughably. Between 2010 and 2012, Raisman upgraded her D Score a total of 2.0 across the four events, (0.8 on floor, 0.7 on vault, 0.3 on bars, and 0.2 on beam). That’s a ton, and it was probably necessary to make her the lock for the Olympic team she suddenly became. The difference between Raisman and those who didn’t upgrade as much is probably a combination of her sturdy ability to avoid injury and the depth and pressure of the US team, forcing the veterans to keep upgrading to remain in the picture.
There were a few others who upgraded their difficulties between 2010 and 2012, and surprisingly, they were almost all super veterans from the previous quad, the people we think would be least likely to upgrade at that later point in their careers. Ferrari upgraded like crazy on beam and floor for 2012, going up 0.5 or more on both events, Daniele Hypolito stepped it up 0.4 on both bars and beam, and Hannah Whelan jumped up 0.5 on bars to try to give the team a third strong bars score. Koko Tsurumi is another who stepped up her bars composition significantly toward the end of the quad.
Returning to the composition of the teams, even though having 1 or 2 team members stick around was the most likely outcome, it was not the rule. Great Britain brought back 4 members of the 2010 team for the Olympics, and Australia’s whole Olympic team had also competed at 2010 worlds. Both teams had some slight increases in D Scores across the board, but the team makeup and team results remained pretty constant, with Great Britain performing about the same in 2010 as 2012 and Australia struggling more with the execution. Neither team improved its finish from 2010 to 2012, which is to be expected when the team remains the same.
It has been a fairly common trend to see the same gymnasts competing at international events year after year for countries like Great Britain and Australia because they haven’t had the depth to push people off the teams. If you have the difficulty, you’re there and you’re staying. It would then seem more realistic to use the 2014 seniors as a measuring stick for 2016 for those teams, but Great Britain is an interesting case right now because of the unprecedented increase in quality and depth over the last couple of years in their junior ranks. It’s getting considerably harder for the seniors to stay. Is the era ending when a stalwart like Hannah Whelan can stick around for a few quads making team after team after team? Will she still be the favored choice for Team GB once Generation Art turns senior? It’s something to watch.
The other interesting case I haven’t yet mentioned is China because 2012 was such an anomaly, both internationally and in China’s team history. Like the British, the Chinese team also returned 4 members of the 2010 team to the 2012 Olympics, but that’s much more unusual for a country where we tend to expect a very high turnover of gymnasts and a very young team. Who would have thought that China would be the country trotting out the same gymnasts year after year? Where were those sudden beam workers that no one had ever heard of popping up and being amazing for a day and then disappearing?
China is also anomalous because those 4 returning members all dropped difficulty. While all the other teams that qualified to the 2012 Olympics remained steady or increased their D Scores (all of them), these same Chinese gymnasts regressed, particularly Huang Qiushuang, who dropped multiple tenths on bars and beam, and Sui Lu, who dropped several tenths on floor from 2010 to 2012. It’s no surprise, then, that they also performed much better in 2010 compared to the ragged show they put on in 2012. Huang and Sui can be added to that large group of seniors who did not increase difficulty as the quad progressed, but that’s far from being the norm or the expectation for a Chinese team.
Our Level 10s and future NCAA 9.875ers have concluded competition at their national championships, so it’s time to examine at who they are, what they’ve done, and where they’re going. If you’re not a JO follower (translation: if you’re not a parent of a JO gymnast, basically), the competition is broken down into 8 divisions (Junior A-D, Senior A-D) divided by age. For our NCAA purposes, the junior divisions aren’t immediately relevant because, even though some of them have already done fetus-verbals to college programs, they’re still a long way off and a lot can change.
Full results can be found here, (and associated college verbals and signings can, as always, be found at collegegymfans) but I’m paying attention to only the senior divisions right now with particular emphasis on Senior C and Senior D, the gymnasts we will see entering NCAA programs in just a couple months. Here’s what happened:
SENIOR D
Top 10 AA 1. Taylor Harrison – Ohio State 2014-2015 38.475 (VT – 2nd, UB – 2nd, BB – 2nd, FX – 10th) Ohio State has been stuck in the 195s for a few seasons now, and with Shaffer, Miller, Aepli, and DeLuca all leaving, they are desperate for this kind of winning-senior-D-level gymnastics to remain somewhere in the vicinity of the top teams. They are in dire need of AAers, so seeing an incoming gymnast win with 9.6s and 9.7s in Level 10 in encouraging.
2. Danielle Breen – Nebraska 2014-2015 38.400 (VT – 3rd, UB – 4th, BB – 5th, FX – 5th) Nebraska is one of the big winners at JO Nationals this year, with several new recruits emerging or confirming their statuses as potential impact gymnasts. Breen is less well-known, but finishing in the top 5 on every event helps. Don’t expect a post-Wong, post-Super Six slump for Nebraska in 2015. This is a goo-ood class that should continue bolstering the team’s depth.
3. Kaitlynn Hedelund – North Carolina 2014-2015 38.200 (VT – 12th, UB – 10th, BB – 7th, FX – 10th) This is Hedelund’s second straight year placing in the top 3 in her division, cracking the top 10 on beam both times. UNC also has Lindsey Lemke, a Geddert’s girl who placed well in the past, coming in next season, so at least there is some prior success coming in this year for a team that has been off the radar lately. Let’s see if it translates.
4. Maddy Stover – Utah 2014-2015 38.175 (VT – 18th, UB – 16th, BB – 1st, FX – 15th) AND 5. Tiffani Lewis – Utah 2014-2015 38.125 (VT – 7th, UB – 10th, BB – 7th, FX – 20th)
Nebraska wasn’t the only team that had a good weekend. Utah should be toasting these results, with their incoming class recording solid AA placements. Look at those beam rankings. Utah still needs serious restocking on beam after consecutive years of the cracks emerging at the worst time, and they have the opportunity to wholly refresh that lineup for 2015. The interesting thing about Utah next year is that they’re losing four major contributors, but they’re not losing AAers (Damianova – 3 events, Lofgren – 2 events, Del Priore – 1 event, Hansen – 1 event), so the effect may not be felt as deeply as one would think.
6. Zoey Schaefer – Washington 2014-2015 38.100 (VT – 29th, UB – 2nd, BB – 15th, FX – 1st)
7. Jordyn Penny – Ball State 2014-2015 38.000 (VT – 18th, UB – 4th, BB – 18th, FX – 12th)
8. Sydney Waltz – Kentucky 2014-2015 37.950 (VT – 18th, UB – 10th, BB – 14th, FX – 20th)
9. Kamerin Moore – Nebraska 2014-2015 37.875 (VT – 7th, UB – 1st, BB – 32nd, FX – 3rd) Another of the much-anticipated Nebraska gymnasts, but she’s more well known because of her tenure as a junior elite and status as a Geddert’s gymnast. Moore would have placed right at the top with a hit beam routine, and it’s reasonable to expect big things from her.
10. Alexis Mattern – Ohio State 2014-2015 37.850 (VT – 4th, UB – 37th, BB – 7th, FX – 20th)
Notables Myia Hambrick – LSU 2014-2015 VT – 7th, UB – 10th, BB – 2nd I expected a higher placement from Hambrick, but a floor error took her out of the top AA rankings. However, she is very strong on floor (she’s an LSU gymnast after all) and always seems to do well on beam – 2 years in a row placing 2nd there at nationals, which is the far more important quality for the Tigers right now.
Taylor Allex – errrr, Utah 2012-2013? (Is she planning to go to another program?) VT – 1st, FX – 5th
Lauren Li – Penn State 2014-2015 VT – 7th, FX – 2nd
Lia Breeden – New Hampshire 2014-2015 BB – 5th, FX – 3rd
Lianne Josbacher – Boise State 2014-2015 BB – 10th
Anya Olson – Brown 2014-2015 UB – 10th
Also, JaNay Honest competed in this session. I mention that just because at last word, she was set to walk on at UCLA, and she scored a solid 9.625 on vault for her yfull. Given the scoring gap UCLA has seen on vault lately (and losing Courtney doesn’t help), they’re in the market for vaulters.
SENIOR C
Top 10 AA 1. Grace Williams – Nebraska 2014-2015 38.725 (VT – 7th, UB – 1st, BB – 3rd, FX – 2nd) More from Nebraska? Given her years of strong placements in JO, Williams has a chance to be the best of the bunch for Nebraska’s incoming team. Note that Williams and Moore both won their division on bars, and that may be where the Huskers need the most infusion of scoring next year. They don’t have the Wongs and Giblins anymore.
2. Erin Macadaeg – LSU 2014-2015 38.700 (VT – 4th, UB – 17th, BB – 1st, FX – 1st) We met Macadaeg and her clean gymnastics at P&G Championships last year, and it’s serving her well in JO. As mentioned with Hambrick, that beam placement is her most important virtue, especially considering how hard it will be for even excellent gymnasts to make those vault and floor lineups next year.
3. Kari Lee – Utah 2014-2015 38.475 (VT – 1st, UB – 2nd, BB – 5th, FX – 15th) For a while we though Lee was going to Arizona, but she switched to Utah, which is a big get for the Utes. She has shown an important mixture of security and power on most of the events boasts an impressive yfull on vault. That vault lineup is going to be a thing. 4. Paige Zaziski – Arkansas 2014-2015 38.375 (VT – 1st, UB – 4th, BB – 10th, FX – 4th) Arkansas will have to find a way to muddle through without Katherine Grable (as if anyone ever could), so I like those high vault and floor placements from Zaziski.
5. Joslyn Goings – Washington 2014-2015 38.200 (VT – 12th, UB – 13th, BB – 4th, FX – 17th) Love to see two Washington gymnasts in the top 10 here. That team was so disappointingly depleted this season.
6. Ericha Fassbender – Florida 2014-2015 38.150 (VT – 4th, UB – 10th, BB – 16th, FX – 4th) The hits just keep coming for Florida. She’s obviously a strong gymnast, but I do wonder where she fits in. It’s a similar wonder I had when Kiersten Wang joined the team, and to some extent Spice, Boyce, and SCP as well. Excellent gymnast, but does she make lineups? Kennedy Baker seems the most likely to fill some of those Macko/Alaina spots, and perhaps Grace McLaughlin in places as well. After that, it’s going to be a clawing fight of 9.850s to make the 6 on those events. 7. Brianna Brown – Michigan 2014-2015 38.050 (VT – 23rd, UB – 4th, BB – 10th, FX – 9th) Michigan is losing almost a whole team worth of scores from 2014, so it’s hard to be too optimistic about the outlook for next year. Brown is going to be a major factor in restocking that team and will need to contribute all the routines all the time always. 8. Abigail Epperson – Maryland 2014-2015 38.000 (VT – 8th, UB – 4th, BB – 24th, FX – 4th)
8. Emily Liddle – Washington 2014-2015 38.000 (VT – 23rd, UB – 13th, BB – 6th, FX – 15th)
10. Jillian Winstanley – George Washington 2014-2015 37.900 (VT – 10th, UB – 24th, BB – 6th, FX – 31st)
Notables Mackenzie Brannan – Alabama 2014-2015 VT – 1st, UB – 4th, FX – 2nd For the second year in a row at JO Nationals, she wins the “would have won if not for a beam fall” award and should be one of the major freshmen in the country next year in spite of not making the top 10 here. She’s a likely contender for at least three events for Alabama in making up for the flurry of routines they must replace (11 of 24), especially some of those late Jacob/Milliner power event spots.
Rachel Stypinski – Kent State 2014-2015 UB – 4th, FX – 4th
Lauren Marinez – Michigan 2014-2015 BB – 2nd (Placing 2nd on beam! You’re the anchor immediately.)
2. Lizzie LeDuc – LSU 2015-2016 38.325 (VT – 7th, UB – 10th, BB – 7th, FX – 3rd)
3. Kirah Koshinski – West Virginia 2015-2016 38.225 (VT – 4th, UB – 23rd, BB – 3rd, FX – 7th)
3. Haylee Roe – Illinois 2015-2016 38.225 (VT – 7th, UB – 7th, BB – 12th, FX – 5th)
5. Abigail Ambrecht – Alabama 2015-2016 38.200 (VT – 4th, UB – 12th, BB – 15th, FX – 9th)
6. Shannon McNatt – Utah 2015-2016 38.125 (VT – 14th, UB – 21st, BB – 15th, FX – 1st)
7. Phoebe Pummarachai – UC Davis 2014-2015 38.050 (VT – 7th, UB – 19th, BB – 3rd, FX – 13th)
8. Alex McMurtry – Florida 2015-2016 (2014-2015) 38.025 (VT – 1st, UB – 44th, BB – 6th, FX – 7th)
9. Rachel Cutler – Minnesota 2015-2016 37.875 (VT – 28th, UB – 7th, BB – 18th, FX – 10th)
10. Brooke Kelly 37.850 (VT – 7th, UB – 1st, BB – 7th, FX – 39th)
We have another year before most of these gymnasts appear in NCAA so there’s plenty of time to address them, but Alicia Boren is becoming a JO queen. She wins every year. Florida is the big standout in this group with Boren and McMurtry (who isn’t so much with the bars but has been excellent on the other three events throughout her JO career), and if Florida is cornering the market on the top JOs now too . . .
Notables Sabrina Garcia – Penn State 2015-2016 VT – 7th, UB – 2nd
Mackenzie Anderson – Arkansas 2015-2016 UB – 5th, FX – 10th
2. Sydney Snead – Georgia 2015-2016 38.225 (VT – 2nd, UB – 4th, BB – 10th, FX – 6th)
3. Lacy Dagen – Florida 2015-2016 38.150 (VT – 4th, UB – 18th, BB – 1st, FX – 13th)
4. Kasey Janowicz 38.100 (VT – 9th, UB – 7th, BB – 15th, FX – 2nd)
5. Mackenzie Austin – North Carolina 2015-2016 37.800 (VT – 21st, UB – 9th, BB – 8th, FX – 13th)
5. Shani Remme 37.800 (VT – 26th, UB – 12th, BB – 7th, FX – 6th)
7. Makenna Merrell – Utah 2015-2016 37.775 (VT – 23rd, UB – 4th, BB – 4th, FX – 21st)
8. Brittany West – Pitt 2015-2016 37.725 (VT – 30th, UB – 20th, BB – 5th, FX – 6th)
9. Brittini Chappell – Arizona State 2015-2016 37.675 (VT – 21st, UB – 12th, BB – 15th, FX – 13th)
10. Meaghan Sievers 37.650 (VT – 5th, UB – 12th, BB – 34th, FX – 10th)
Several of the Senior A gymnasts haven’t made verbals yet, which is surprisingly nice to see. We do have a few top finishers here going to the usual suspect schools, and a few people who excelled on a couple events, like Lehrmann for Oklahoma who has done junior elite, and Kelley for LSU who we’ll obviously hear much about in the coming years. She didn’t have a great competition overall but still won floor.