Tag Archives: Alabama

Live Blog

Friday Live Blog – Alabama @ Auburn; Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, AND SO MUCH MORE

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Friday, February 12

6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Southern Connecticut @ Bridgeport
6:30 ET/3:30 PT – Air Force @ Cortland State – Stream
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Arkansas @ Florida – SCORES – SECN
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Missouri @ Kentucky – SCORES – SECN
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – NC State, William & Mary @ North Carolina – SCORES
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Pittsburgh, Ursinus, Penn @ Towson- SCORES – Stream
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – UW-Eau Claire @ UW-Stout – SCORES – Stream
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Gustavus Adolphus @ UW-La Crosse – Stream
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Perfect 10 Challenge (Oklahoma, Denver, George Washington, Utah State) – SCORES – TV: Fox Sports Whatever
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Winona State @ Illinois State
8:00 ET/5:30 PT – IGI Chicago Style (Central Michigan, Northern Illinois, Temple, Alaska) – FLOG
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – Alabama @ Auburn – SCORES – SECN
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – BYU, Sacramento State @ Southern Utah – SCORES – Stream
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Minnesota @ Nebraska – SCORES
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – Boise State @ San Jose State – SCORES – Stream
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – UC Davis @ Seattle Pacific – SCORES – Stream
Week 5 rankings
Florida returns home. Place your bets for the number of 10s now.

Here’s something fun: Oklahoma’s RQS is already 197.420, which means the Sooners could check out for the rest of the season until regionals and still be fine. For reference, last season it took a 197.270 to get a #1 seed at a regional and a 196.680 to get a #2 seed at a regional.

The majority of other teams won’t have an RQS until after this weekend (I’ll probably give a preliminary RQS outlook along with the rankings on Monday), and we’re still another two weekends away from it actually going into effect, but it’s funny to see which teams are already safe. For comparison, Michigan is currently at 196.880 and Alabama is at 196.705, both already fine but certainly expected to improve greatly over the next month to get that top seed at a regional.

Continue reading Friday Live Blog – Alabama @ Auburn; Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, AND SO MUCH MORE →

NCAA Schedule

The Weekend Plans – February 12-15

Saturday night meets? What, do they think we all have no lives? Oh wait, that is correct.

Top 25 schedule

Friday, February 12
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [9] Arkansas @ [2] Florida
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [15] Missouri @ [25] Kentucky
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Perfect 10 Challenge – [1] Oklahoma, [12] Denver, [17] George Washington, Utah State
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [4] Alabama @ [8] Auburn
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – BYU, Sacramento State @ [21] Southern Utah
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [18] Minnesota @ [14] Nebraska
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [10] Boise State @ San Jose State
Saturday, February 13
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [5] LSU @ [11] Georgia
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Penn State @ [23] Ohio State
5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Iowa @ [20] Illinois
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Southern Connecticut @ [22] New Hampshire
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Washington @ [6] Utah
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [13] Stanford @ Arizona
11:00 ET/8:00 PT – [16] Oregon State @ [7] UCLA
Sunday, February 14
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – [25] Kentucky, Lindenwood, Kent State @ Ball State
2:00 ET/11:00 PT – Michigan State @ [3] Michigan
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [24] West Virginia @ [4] Alabama

Monday, February 15
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [19] Cal @ Arizona State

Live blogging
Friday as usual, probably with special attention to the Perfect 10 Challenge since I’ve seen so much of the SEC this year and less of Denver and GW. Saturday is also sort of making Friday look like an idiot this week, so I’ll be all over that with LSU/Georgia and then again later for the glut of Pac-12 action. It’ll get crazy. Sit back and let the insanity wash over you like a fine breeze or the knowledge of your own insignificance.

Friday
-The most competitive meets on Friday will probably end up being Missouri/Kentucky and Minnesota/Nebraska. The higher-ranked team will be favored in both, but upset potential exists. I’m particularly curious to see how Missouri fares away from home after that unexpectedly huge score last weekend. The next away meet is always the best test of how realistic home scores are.

-Among the big girls, Alabama against Auburn is the showcase on Friday. Apparently, this is kind of a rivalry or something, but in spite of meeting three times last season and this already being the second meeting of 2016, Auburn is still yet to record a victory against Alabama since turning good. At home and coming off a season-high, this is the best chance they’ll have. That said, Alabama should win the meet and is the better team on every event, but that doesn’t mean it will be a blowout. The Tide has displayed inconsistency this season, and while there haven’t been any implosions since the loss to Arkansas, counting medium mistakes or weak landings has become commonplace, including on two of the four events in the last meet. Relying on those mistakes will be Auburn’s hope.

Alabama has two meets this weekend, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect to get any answers about postseason lineups quite yet. Dana has been jumbling people all over the place and will likely do the same this time in order to keep everyone relatively rested and avoid over-pressing the fragile ones. I would bet on more depth exploration for the time being.

We should also be on Beers Watch 2016, not just because it’s important to start drinking during beam but because even though Lauren Beers has competed a remarkable amount for someone who spent the preseason in several pieces in a shoebox, she has been very up-and-down, occasionally starting to look like herself and then immediately falling a bunch of times. How much will they push her in a double-meet weekend, and will we see GoodBeers or DarthBeers?

-Nadia and Bart’s Perfect 10 Challenge (get it, because Nadia got a 10?) is Oklahoma’s home-away-from-home competition, basically a home meet that counts as an away score, though the meet hasn’t necessarily exhibited silly home scoring in the past so it essentially is an away meet. The Sooners looked serious last weekend, so I’m not worried about them. I’m more interested in the other teams competing for second place. Both Denver and George Washington have had their share of impressive scores this season, but those scores have not been achieved against major opposition in a higher-profile setting, so this is an excellent opportunity to evaluate how 9.875y those routines really look directly compared to an Oklahoma.

This is also a podium meet, which is always valuable experience, but for teams like Denver and GW that don’t go to nationals or a conference championship on podium, this is an even rarer and newer experience that may show up in the performances.

I’m mostly worried about what Kathy is going to do without Bart on Friday. It’ll be like that thing where you’re holding one half of an enchanted locket but can’t find the other half.

-Florida is also in action on Friday at the usual time, in need of a comeback meet after a burned-up mess on the last two events at Georgia. The Gators are at home, so the potential for a memory-wiping 198 is high. I’m not that worried about beam, even though they counted a fall last weekend, but floor is becoming more and more fascinating by the week. How can a lineup that has three legitimate 9.950s and is 4th in the country be such a worry? Viability hinges on Bridgey. Grab your spellbooks and pentagrams.

Saturday
-Saturday’s early session is headlined by the LSU/Georgia showdown. Georgia enters the meet in an odd narrative position because beam is not getting any better and was a river of salty tears again last weekend, and yet, they beat Florida. Does that give the team a boost of confidence to remember that I may or may not have described this as a top-5 beam roster in my preseason preview? Or is the epidemic even worse than we possibly feared?

LSU has had its own beam problems, sprinkled with a garnish of bars problems (can you tell I just finished watching Top Chef?), but last week’s meet was by far the team’s most refined, confident, and complete meet across four whole events, with just Sarah Finnegan going breaking our hearts on bars. It was LSU’s first meet without counting a fall in a month, which is both slightly horrifying and ultimately encouraging. Just like NCAA gymnastics.

The Tigers should take this one, even on the road, but if both teams actually hit, this will be a closely run affair. LSU gets the edge on vault. Georgia is a very strong vault team with superior difficulty and ideally would be competitive with LSU, but the landings the last couple meets have not inspired that level of confidence. There is a rumbling that we may get BATTLE DTY at this meet if Brittany Rogers decides to throw hers to match up against Ashleigh Gnat’s, which should be pretty fun. But the most important thing is that Gymdogs other than Brandie Jay show up with their landing pants on this time.

Georgia needs to be ahead at the halfway mark because it’s conceivable that they would have the edge on bars. Both teams have a couple potential 9.9s at the end of the lineup (with some caveats), but Georgia is a bit cleaner at the beginning of the lineup. They’ll have to take advantage of that and create a buffer zone to alleviate the pressure on beam. Beam is obviously what makes LSU the favorite in this meet. That’s not to say that the Tigers have been glorious on beam so far this year, but compared to Georgia, they’re basically a ball of diamonds in a pool of rubies. Even if Georgia were to hit 6-for-6 on beam, right after the unicorns with the Super Bowl with sparkle dust, LSU would still have the advantage because of a greater number of 9.9-possible routines.

LSU will need beam to come through because even though LSU would be considered the stronger floor team at a neutral site, the obscene level of home floor that is sprouting up all over the country this season renders LSU’s theoretical floor advantage null. We’re seeing home teams finish meets with 49.6s all over the place for perfectly well hit, but pretty normal, floor performances, just as Georgia did last weekend. Being better on floor doesn’t look like something the Tigers will be able to rely on, so they’ll have to win the meet because of lovely, hit beam or risk getting Florida-ed.   

-In the late session, the showcase meet features Oregon State heading to UCLA. For UCLA, all eyes are on Sophina after she became Sophina in the last week. I’m fascinated to see how she responds because suddenly she’s going to be the name in this meet and the gymnast people are waiting to see, or coming to the meet expressly to see. Sophina certainly thrives in the spotlight, but that’s a whole new level of pressure, especially for a gymnast who has not always been the most consistent (or there) on floor. I mean, you know something is going to go wrong this time. You know it. It’s like when Lloimincia had her moment and you knew she wasn’t going to make the floor final at nationals right after that. 

It’s a situation where usually I would argue for moving her to the anchor spot to take advantage of this attention and get her what is basically an automatic 10 if she hits her passes, but in this case it’s probably best just to keep things as normal as possible and not add any extra hoopla.

Attendance will also be interesting to watch. Has UCLA been able to turn this 15 minutes of being internet-famous into people in the seats? Or will it just descend right back into same-old, same-old, like gymnastics after the Olympics every four years? This won’t last. In a couple days, people will see the name Sophina DeJesus and think “Did I used to work with her or something?” so they have to take advantage while they can.

Apparently, there are also other gymnasts in this meet. Oregon State is coming off a 48.8 of a performance against Washington on Monday, which is not going to cut it against UCLA barring a meltdown. With the season-ending injuries to Aufiero and Dessaints, OSU has become a 9.825 team that lacks the big vaults and bars routines to compete with Super Six-contending schools. The same argument might be made for UCLA (is this going to be a good bars week or a bad bars week?), but UCLA’s situation is less extreme. The Bruins also boast big potential scores on beam and home floor—home floor is becoming the fifth event; vault, bars, beam, floor, and home floor—to make up for any 9.800ishness on the first two events.

Utah hosts Washington in what should be a comfortable showing. There are areas where I’m still not sold on for Utah, with a moderate-to-severe case of the Pac-12s on vault, but this should be an easy win. Hopefully Washington will come back after we got all excited about this team and then they had an absolute meltdown against Oregon State. Bars and beam pretty, come back to us. COME BACK TO US.

In the non-nationally-televised meet, Stanford heads to Arizona with Arizona looking to keep the cap on the beam this time and Stanford looking to…be a little less Stanford than last week? I know we all wait to even bother analyzing Stanford until mid-March because we’ve learned our lesson, but the dearth of 9.8s on vault and floor is an anytime problem.

Sunday
-Michigan went home and got better on Monday, finally breaking the 197 barrier in style and assuring everyone that Michigan-scoring is not a thing you have to worry about. The judges were really happy about that performance, especially the one who decided to give Karas a 10 on vault. Michigan has been moving along fairly well, and we can expect the scores to more regularly hit that mid-197 range as the details are refined toward the postseason. The Wolverines already have an RQS that would put them at a #2 seed at a regional, and it’s February 11th. Ideally, they’ll stop throwing in the random dropped fall on bars and beam that makes me nervous and can’t be afforded when things really matter, but there’s no reason not to expect another 197 this weekend against Michigan State.

Live Blog

Friday Live Blog – [5] Alabama @ [1] Florida; Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia’s Crazy Beam

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Friday, January 29
6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Temple, Ursinus, Centenary @ West Chester
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Alabama @ Florida – SCORES – SECN
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Michigan @ Nebraska – SCORES – BTN2Go($)
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Georgia @ Kentucky – SCORES – SECN
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Illinois @ Penn State – SCORES – Stream(free)
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Hamline @ UW-Eau Claire
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Gustavus Adolphus @ UW-Stout – SCORES – Stream
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – NC State, Lindenwood @ Iowa State – SCORES
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-Whitewater @ SEMO – SCORES
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Winona State @ UW-La Crosse
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – Auburn @ Arkansas- SCORES – SECN
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – BYU @ Boise State
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Southern Utah @ Utah State – SCORES – Stream
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – Texas Woman’s, William & Mary, Seattle Pacific @ San Jose State – SCORES
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – UC Davis @ Sacramento State
Week 3 rankings

Alabama and Florida. We’re not goin’ for no city championships.

Dana has done a whole heap of depth exploring in the first couple meets, which I always support (unless it’s still going on in March and terrible), so it will be interesting to see how the lineups actually shake out today for a real showdown in which Alabama can’t really afford to use B-team routines. We should have a better idea of who’s in favor for late-season lineups and who is “such great depth and spirit,” especially on floor, based on today.

Or not. Floor lineup is Sims, Giancroce, Brannan, Winston, Bailey, Beers. So looks like we’re still in the exploring phase. Dana Duckworth is like a fantasy gym nightmare. Florida’s lineups remain intact.
Continue reading Friday Live Blog – [5] Alabama @ [1] Florida; Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia’s Crazy Beam →

NCAA Schedule

The Weekend Plans – January 29-February 1

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The top 25 schedule looks like a rather paltry affair this week, but that’s mostly because it’s heavily incestuous with most of the top teams competing against each other. So, what we lose in quantity we should make up for in quality with a few legitimate marquee 50/50 meets. It’s worth getting excited about.

Top 25 schedule

Friday, January 29
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [5] Alabama @ [1] Florida
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [3] Michigan @ [17] Nebraska
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [13] Georgia @ [23] Kentucky
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [19] Illinois @ Penn State
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [9] Auburn @ [8] Arkansas
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – BYU @ [10] Boise State
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [24] Southern Utah @ Utah State

Saturday, January 30
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – [11] George Washington @ North Carolina
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [18] Minnesota @ Ohio State
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – [14] Denver @ Bowling Green
4:00 ET/1:00 PT – Northern Illinois @ [24] Eastern Michigan
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Arizona State @ [15] Oregon State
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Metroplex Challenge ([2] Oklahoma, [6] LSU, [12] Stanford, [16] Missouri, Washington)

Monday, February 1
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [20] Arizona @ [7] Utah
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – [4] UCLA @ [21] Cal

Live blogging
Friday will be the usual, with special focus on Alabama/Florida since that’s kind of a massive meet. It doesn’t look like there will be live streaming of the Michigan/Nebraska meet, which is a shame, so we’ll just have to keep ourselves warm with SEC action and the cozy glow of Kathy Johnson’s sigh of dismay. I’ll then be back on Saturday to get sloppy with Metroplex, which should be the amazing, competitive, crack-smokingly-scored meet we’ve come to know and love.

Friday
-We’ve got some serious showdowns headlining Friday in which the results are actually up in the air (!), so let’s get into it. Alabama and Florida is always a worthwhile experience, but with both teams at a point in the season where they’re still showing flashes of brilliance mixed with flashes of vulnerability, the outcome will probably be determined by which team can minimize those pesky January errors we’ve been seeing rather than which team is the most brilliantly, spectacularly amazing.

If both teams do end up hitting to their capabilities, give to edge to Florida for having shown higher scoring potential so far this year and (primarily) for being at home. Still, these teams are both at a level when even counting a 9.700 would change the outcome, let alone counting a fall, so there’s no margin for the Gators.
 

Florida’s clear advantage event is bars. The Gators devlier a much stronger lineup with several more 9.900-9.950s, while Alabama is more a 9.850 team because of scoring vulnerabilities like those double fronts. It’s unlikely that Alabama can keep pace with hit Sloan/Caquatto routines, so Florida will need and expect a lead at the halfway point. That’s especially especially true because I also give Florida the edge on vault, with bigger 1.5s (though Alabama should have more 1.5s—Beers, Brannan, Guerrero vs. Baker, Boren—which could mitigate that) and two of the best fulls in NCAA in Sloan and McMurtry, fulls that Alabama cannot match with its own. That advantage, however, is so dependent on the landings, and Florida is definitely not on stick patrol yet and giving up quite a bit there right now. If Alabama can land and minimize the two-event deficit to something around two tenths, we’ve got a real meet.

All eyes will be on Alabama’s beam after the catastrophe last weekend to see if it becomes a Georgia or not. Theoretically, I do think Alabama’s beam is stronger than Florida’s 1-6 with more pristine form and potential 9.9s, but of course, hitting. Florida has been better at hitting beam than any other team so far this year. If Alabama is to take the meet, winning beam is absolutely essential, especially because Florida ends on floor at home, a scoring situation that may counteract any lineup advantage Alabama may have on the event.

While Florida boasts the two strongest floor routines from either team in Baker and Sloan (especially in the absence of Carley Sims), Alabama has many, many more options for realistic 9.850-9.875 routines than Florida does and can use those early spots in the lineup to gain a floor edge. Much as Florida needs comparatively stronger bars scores 4-6, Alabama needs comparatively stronger floor scores 1-3.

-Simultaneous with this top-of-the-SEC showdown, there will be a top-of-the-Big-Ten showdown as Michigan visits Nebraska. Nebraska is slowly making strides from the disastrous first meet, with Blanske rounding into normal form, Sienna Crouse getting into some more lineups, and Schweihofer emerging as a valuable supporting player. That should make this meet more competitive than it may have seemed after, say, the first week. Still, Michigan will be expected to win and will be expected to get a 196.9, though the potential is certainly there to break 197 finally if it’s a good day for floor landings.

-Obviously, Georgia’s beam is a nightmare, so I’m sure we’re all eager to see that because whether it continues to be a train wreck or this is the week it pulls itself back together, it’s must-see acro-series TV. Weirdly, there’s a part of me that’s pretty optimistic about Georgia based on watching the team this season, in spite of all the 195s, because the other three events look seriously good and are improving. Once beam is worked out, and it will get worked out, Georgia will be legit.

-Another exceptionally competitive SEC showdown will be Auburn’s visit to Arkansas. These two teams look pretty evenly matched at this point, with Arkansas making an unexpected early run to challenge Auburn for the underdog SEC darling crown this season. It’s a tossup right now, though it’s critical that Auburn deal with the beam issues to come out with a win. Auburn should be a better bars and beam team than Arkansas, and while that has come to fruition on bars, Auburn has looked rather uncomfortable on beam and has not used the legitimate 9.900 potential of the Atkinson/Demers/Milliet trio to gain an advantage there.

Arkansas looks farther along and more prepared than Auburn through January, very fit and with a larger proportion of upperclassman competing compared to Auburn, still needing some time to bring the freshmen along. That preparation should give Arkansas an advantage on vault in spite of lacking the big 1.5 of an Atkinson. Arkansas’s vault landings have been more controlled, which has accounted for the stronger scores, so if this meet is decided by landings rather than mistakes, that favors Arkansas. Auburn, on the other hand, has higher scoring potential as a team and should be the better side come March/April, so if we see a progression from the last couple meets into something closer to mid-season form, Auburn will have an excellent shot at this one.

Saturday
-The bigly big big bigness on Saturday is the Metroplex Challenge, the annual bacchanalia of valuable away scores pitting a bunch of competitive teams against each other. In the most likely outcome, it will boil down to Oklahoma and LSU fighting for the win. Stanford has extremely impressive routines, but still lacks the competitive lineups on vault and floor to beat the likes of the very best teams. This will actually be a valuable test case for Stanford looking ahead to the postseason to see how those vaults and floor routines will be scored in front of the same judges who have just seen Oklahoma and LSU. Competing against power, it’s easier to give those Stanford floor routines 9.700s. Missouri has also started the season with a program renaissance, which will continue for a couple seasons as this is a very young group, but will be viewing this meet as a chance for a usable road score rather than comparing themselves to top-10 teams. That’s true for Washington as well.

As for Oklahoma and LSU, how do we think this will go? The rematch. It seems pretty evenly poised, and while both teams have made strides to develop their traditionally weaker areas over the last few seasons, this one looks like it’s going to come down to the old standby strengths. Oklahoma’s bars and beam up against LSU’s vault and floor.

The Sooners have had to shake things up on bars a little bit this season, but they’ve put together a pretty and capable lineup able to remain competitive in the early spots and throw out some very big scores in the Wofford spots, where Wofford goes. That’s the biggest asset Oklahoma has compared to LSU since LSU will still have to count on some Gnat and Savona routines. As for beam, it’s Oklahoma beam, and in spite of some unexpected fallsies early on, this rotation should score exceptionally well. LSU has the capability and gorgeousness to compete with Oklahoma’s beam and score just as well, but we haven’t seen that develop as yet. They’ve had to play around with the lineup, they’ve looked a little tentative, and we’re all still waiting to see the 9.950-a-thon that a Macadaeg, Hambrick, Finnegan show, co-starring Gnat, Priessman, and Ewing can deliver.

Similarly, just going the other direction, both teams have tremendous vaults, but if LSU is continuing to stick those 10.0 SVs (and rest assured that Gnat will get a 10 every time she sticks her DTY), it’s going to be tough for any team to keep pace. Still, floor is really where LSU will look to win this one with bigness. The first meet between these two teams came down to floor, with the teams exactly tied based on the other three events. LSU went 9.9-city while Oklahoma counted some 9.8s and didn’t have enough of an advantage from the other events to make that OK. The Tigers need that to happen again, whereas Oklahoma needs to develop enough advantage on the other events to ensure the meet doesn’t come down to which team’s floor rotation is the biggest and loudest. Based on the action we’ve seen since these two teams squared off in the first meet, Oklahoma has looked steadier and has shown more improvement and therefore should level the season series with this one, though it will be a battle. LSU needs big beam, Oklahoma needs big floor. Who’s going to get it?

Monday
Monday? Come on. The Pac-12 is going to Monday, with Utah and UCLA both competing in meets they should win. Utah suffered a massive setback during the week with Kari Lee going down to a torn Achilles. The only silver lining there is that it happened early enough that they will be able to snatch a redshirt for her for this season should she want it, but it’s devastating to Utah’s scoring potential. While Lee hadn’t been her 2015 self so far this year (especially in the leg-event department, so perhaps now we’re all realizing what was wrong…), she was the integral AAer on this roster. Time to scrounge for routines, but those routines are not going to be 9.9s, which hurts on every event and seriously tests this team’s depth. Arizona showed impressive improvement against UCLA, with tremendous potential on bars and beam, and will look to pounce on a shaken Utah that has to throw some new routines.

Nothing much has changed for UCLA since the first meet, the strengths are still beam and floor and the weaknesses are still vault and bars. Bars has been the most variable performance so far, looking much more impressive in the second meet against Florida than in the other two, so the next few meets will be interesting to start to gauge which one is the real UCLA and which one isn’t. Cal has started the season predominately as expected, mid 195s, strong on vault and floor, weaker on bars and beam, especially beam. Toni-Ann has been the scoring leader and strongest gymnast on the roster once again, but she’s a little 9.850s compared to her 9.900s from last season, and they’re going to need her to be not just the best gymnast on the team but one of the best gymnasts in the country to try to make that leap to the nationals-challening sides.