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Arkansas Regional Preview

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April 1, 5:00 ET/2:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[4] Utah (bars)
[9] Denver (vault)
[16] Cal (bye before floor)
[21] Auburn (bye before bars)
[27] Arkansas (beam)
[28] Central Michigan (floor)

Individuals
Mikailla Northern, Illinois-Chicago (AA)
Alexis Brawner, SEMO (AA)
Ashley Potts, Northern Illinois (AA)
Katherine Prentice, Northern Illinois (AA)
Kierstin Sokolowski, Lindenwood (VT, BB)
Schyler Jones, Texas Woman’s (VT)
Courtney Dowdell, Northern Illinois (UB, FX)
Jamyra Carter, Northern Illinois (UB)
Nichelle Christopherson, Arizona State (BB)
Gabrielle Cooke, Illinois State (FX)

The favorite – Utah
Utah should feel pretty comfortable heading into this regional. Reproducing the routines from Pac-12s would allow plenty of wiggle room for mistakes to crop up here and there and still not compromise qualification.

It is, nonetheless, a challenging group of teams. Denver had a streak of six-straight scores of 196.9+ snapped at Big 12s, and Cal was on track for a 196.8 at Pac-12s before counting a beam fall. It’s typically difficult to keep up those scores at regionals, but Utah should nonetheless anticipate seeing two challengers score toward the high 196s and would therefore need a 197 to feel truly safe. A 197 is not a difficult ask for Utah, but we have seen Utah fall to the mid-196s away against Georgia and Oregon State in the last couple months, meets that did not include counting falls. That’s the kind of performance that must be avoided because a mid-196 would make Utah vulnerable.

In terms of using regionals to judge national competitiveness, Utah is working from a start-value disadvantage on vault, one that was compounded by McNatt’s injury at Pac-12s (Merrell’s 1.5 wasn’t in the lineup, though I expect she’d come back in now). The likes of Lewis and Rowe must continue landing as well as they did at Pac-12s to try to mitigate that SV disadvantage. If they start hopping, those vaults get into the 9.825 zone very quickly and would give up multiple tenths to the teams with three, four, and five 10.0 starts. A best-level Utah would also reduce a tendency toward leg separations on bars, which is a major difference-maker between bars rotations among the strongest teams. Continue reading Arkansas Regional Preview →

Meet Preview

SEC Championship Preview

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The arrival of the conference championships marks the beginning of the onset of the opening of the first stage of an NCAA gymnastics season’s march toward maturity, like a disgusting larva transforming into a slightly less disgusting larva.

Results still don’t really matter, but this is the last time results won’t matter. And that’s something. Also blah blah blah, bragging rights. The SEC coaches are always eager to tell us that winning the SEC Championship is harder than winning the national championship, which is just blatantly false and dumb to say, but also…a trophy? Hooray! Winner and losers! Life is happening!

Here, I break down prospects for victory and what I’ll be watching at the SEC Championship for each of the teams.

The championship will be conducted in two sessions, the first at 2:00 ET and featuring Kentucky, Missouri, Auburn, and Arkansas, and the second at 6:00 ET and featuring LSU, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Teams will compete in seeded order in each session, so LSU and Kentucky begin on vault, Florida and Missouri on bars, Alabama and Auburn on beam, and Georgia and Arkansas on floor.

Session I – Kentucky, Missouri, Auburn, Arkansas
It’s not impossible to get a high score out of the first session. Last season, Georgia totaled 196.850 even with a mild beamtastrophe. Jay, Rogers, Box, and Schick all hit the 9.9 zone on at least one piece, and Jay scored high enough to finish third overall in the AA. So, there is precedent for a useful total.

At the same time, since the SEC went to a two-session format, no team has hit the 197 mark in the first group. With regional seeding and placements riding on how Kentucky and Missouri score in this meet, attempts to hold down the scores in the first session to leave room for the better teams in the second session (reasonable) will have implications for all the teams in the final season standings, not just the teams in this meet. Continue reading SEC Championship Preview →

Live Blog

Friday Live Blog – March 3, 2017

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Friday, March 3
 Scores Watch
6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Kent State @ Bowling Green LINK FB
6:30 ET/3:30 PT – West Virginia, Michigan State, Towson @ Pitt LINK ACC
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Arkansas @ [11] Kentucky LINK SEC+
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Beatification of St. Nastia LINK NBC
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Rutgers, TWU @ SEMO LINK FREE
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-Stout, Gustavus Adolphus @ UW-Eau Claire
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [18] Auburn @ [15] Missouri LINK SEC+
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Stanford @ [5] Utah LINK P12
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – NC State @ [21] Southern Utah LINK FREE
11:00 ET/8:00 PT – Centenary @ Alaska LINK FREE

Opening the SEC slate today is Arkansas’s visit to Kentucky, where Mark Cook has stated that the goal for Arkansas is to get five people up on each event, which is also the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.

Something I hadn’t realized until now, because wins and losses don’t matter in the slightest, is that Auburn remains winless this season. Still might be nice to get one of those win thingies? It’s doable against Missouri, even on the road. Scores also remains a concern for Auburn. Theoretically, Auburn could move as high as #14 this week, but Auburn also has the lowest max RQS of any team in the top 20, meaning their ranking is at the mercy of the other teams. Continue reading Friday Live Blog – March 3, 2017 →

Live Blog

Friday Live Blog – February 24, 2017

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Friday, February 24
 Scores Watch
6:00 ET/3:00 PT – Maryland, Temple, Southern Connecticut, West Chester (@ Philadelphia, PA)
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [13] Missouri @ [3] Florida LINK SEC
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [8] Denver @ [20] Ohio State LINK OSU $
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [18] Washington, [22] Illinois, Northern Illinois @ [11] Kentucky LINK SEC+
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – William & Mary @ North Carolina LINK ACC
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Rutgers @ Towson LINK FREE
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Ball State @ Eastern Michigan LINK ESPN3
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Air Force @ [23] New Hampshire LINK FREE
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-Whitewater @ UW-La Crosse FREE
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-Eau Claire @ UW-Oshkosh FREE
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-Stout @ Gustavus Adolphus LINK
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [7] Georgia @ [1] Oklahoma LINK OU $
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [2] LSU @ [14] Auburn LINK SEC
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [12] Boise State @ [4] Alabama LINK SEC+
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [10] Oregon State @ Stanford LINK P12
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [17] Iowa @ BYU LINK FREE
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – Sacramento State, San Jose State, Seattle Pacific @ UC Davis LINK FB

For today, the top four in the rankings are set and will not move regardless of result. Tomorrow, it will be possible for both Utah and UCLA to challenge Alabama depending on how everyone does. The 4-6 teams could end up in any order in Monday’s rankings, but no lower teams can challenge that group of six for this week. Continue reading Friday Live Blog – February 24, 2017 →