Here’s your weekly look at the RQS picture, including what RQS each team can reach based on scores from the week’s upcoming meets. We’re getting down to it now, and with several teams already done until conference championships, the picture is becoming quite a bit clearer.

**This now includes the results from Tuesday night, which is why it will differ from Monday’s official weekly rankings.

But first, as I did last week, this is what the regionals draw would look like if the season ended right at this moment.

Regional A: 1. Oklahoma, 12. Nebraska, 13. Oregon State
Regional B: 2. UCLA, 11. Arkansas, 14. Auburn
Regional C: 3. LSU, 10. Cal, 15. Denver
Regional D: 4. Utah (host), 9. Kentucky, 16. Boise State
Regional E: 5. Florida, 8. Washington, 17. Arizona State
Regional F: 6. Alabama (host), 7. Michigan, 18. George Washington

Do I need to complain about the highest-ranked teams getting punished with the most challenging regionals again? Yes? OK good. In this setup, you would rather be ranked 4-6 than 1-3, which makes NO DAMN SENSE.

In cast you were curious, this year’s regional event draw is
#1 seed – Floor (end on bye)
#2 seed – Beam (end on bars)
#3 seed – Bye (end on beam)
#4 seed – Bye (end on vault)
#5 seed – Bars (end on bye)
#6 seed – Vault (end on floor)

I like the 2-3 seeds ending on bars and beam.

Now, onto the RQSs. Scores in bold will be part of the six scores used for final RQS and can no longer be removed.

Maximum possible RQS after next meet: 198.160

Oklahoma competes twice this weekend, which will simply serve as more opportunity to run the RQS up into the stratosphere. In the first meet, the score to watch out for is 197.875, what Oklahoma needs to set a new all-time RQS record. With three meets left, setting the record seems inevitable at this point, but it could happen as soon as Friday.

Regardless, Oklahoma has already secured the #1 ranking for another week.

Maximum possible RQS after next meet: 197.970

UCLA recorded a 198.275 on Tuesday (didn’t do a live blog, so summary: UCLA’s best meet of the year, vault was shockingly excellent, some issues in the second half, Carol sure wasn’t going to miss senior night, maybe a real-world 197.6?), a performance which allows the Bruins to move ahead of LSU for the moment, though with UCLA idle until Pac-12s, LSU will have a chance to re-pass UCLA over the weekend.

Maximum possible RQS after next meet: 197.900

LSU is #2 in the weekly rankings but #3 in the in-progress rankings after UCLA’s Tuesday performance. The Tigers do have one more meet before the conference championship and can stay ahead of UCLA in Monday’s rankings by scoring 197.850 against Arizona on Saturday.

Maximum possible RQS after next meet: 197.540

Utah is already set at #4 for next Monday’s rankings, not able to catch UCLA and—with Florida on a rest week—unable to be caught by any other team. It’s extremely unlikely that Utah will move higher than 4th at this point (it would take two scores of 198.5 in the final two meets), but Florida still presents a danger after conference championships.

Maximum possible RQS after next meet: 197.655

Florida is off this weekend, so that maximum RQS refers to where Florida can go after SECs—and is therefore Florida’s maximum possible final RQS on the season. With enough of a lead over the trailing teams, Florida is guaranteed to stay #5 this week despite not competing.

Continue reading RQS Update – Week 10 →

1. Oklahoma Sooners

RQS: 197.995
Previous ranking: 1

Oklahoma went 198 for the sixth time this season, a feat that essentially (though not yet mathematically) locks up the regular-season #1 ranking for the 4th consecutive year. We still have yet not seen truly peak Oklahoma—in this 198, there was a beam fall, some non-ideal floor landings, hopping on vault—which will give the Sooners hope that they can continue improving and achieve real-life 198s, even in the postseason. We’re all looking forward to seeing what these teams actually score when going against each other in sober circumstances. (AH HA HA like those exist.) Let’s get a move on already. 

2. LSU Tigers

RQS: 197.755
Previous ranking: 2

LSU holds onto #2 after a 197.575, a meet the team will be kind of meh about but that also did not feature several of the most important routines, particularly on floor. It’s a performance that may not be too representative of LSU’s current level, a maneuvering-for-postseason-health-and-lineup-answers kind of meet. I don’t think any of the backups who competed on floor got themselves into the main lineup with their showings in this meet, though we did see Cannamela on vault score better for her full than she did for the 1.5 last week, which may be an answer to that question. As of this point, the full looks the score-smart decision, even if that feels like playing it safe.

3. UCLA Bruins

RQS: 197.725
Previous ranking: 3

With a big 197 at Stanford, UCLA makes a slight move closer to LSU this week and will have a chance to pass, at least temporarily, after Tuesday night’s meet. Tuesday is supposed to feature backups, but it’s also senior night so 10s for everyone. Much of the focus of UCLA’s performance against Stanford will be on the bars 10s and how apparently Elizabeth Price doesn’t get the same consideration, but the real highlight of the Bruins’ performance was improvement in vault landings. This is still not a particularly Super Six-competitive vault lineup, which makes the landings all the more important. Now, about those early bars routines. UCLA is starting to hint that Kocian may come in on bars at the last minute. It’s a race against time, but at this point, go for it.

4. Utah Utes

RQS: 197.415
Previous ranking: 4

Utah stays 4th after a 196.800 in a loss to Michigan, a score that is dropped for RQS and a meet that will end up being more memorable for the internet controversy of MyKayla Skinner adding new gun-fingers at the Michigan team as her ending pose on floor (oopsers!) than anything Utah did during the routines. Now, it was still perfectly acceptable performance that would advance from a regional, but it featured uncharacteristically uncertain landings and tentative work, especially once the team moved to beam to end a close contest. By not being able to use this score, enough of a gap has opened up that it’s unlikely Utah will move higher than fourth as we go to regionals, though that’s still solid and would equal last year’s regular-season performance.

Continue reading Week 10 Rankings →