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Florida Regional Preview

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This regional pretty clearly exposes the nonsense of no longer seeding the 19-36 teams and moving back to the allegedly geographical placement of lower-ranked teams, which doesn’t really hold up from a competitive standpoint or a logistical standpoint.

Here, we’ve ended up with a fairly unbalanced regional featuring three teams ranked in the 30s and unlikely to challenge for qualification, while others are much much deeper. On top of that, a team like New Hampshire isn’t really benefiting from the supposed reduction in travel time and costs that geographical placement is supposed to bring because…Florida. Twelve hundred miles away and not exactly in region.

April 1 – 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[3] Florida (bars)
[10] Georgia (vault)
[15] Missouri (bye before floor)
[30] New Hampshire (bye before bars)
[33] Penn State (beam)
[35] North Carolina (floor)

Individuals
Chelsea Knight, NC State (AA)
Gabriella Yarussi, Towson (AA)
Tyra McKellar, Towson (AA)
Kristen Peterman, Maryland (AA)
Sarah Faller, Maryland (VT, BB)
Paris Phillips, NC State (VT)
Amanda Fillard, NC State (UB)
Melissa Brooker, NC State (UB)
Mary Elle Arduino, Towson (BB)
Alecia Farina, Maryland (FX)
Emily Brauckmuller, Maryland (FX)

The favorite – Florida
In this meet, home-gym advantage should be the least significant of all the regionals. Florida would be the favorite regardless of location.

We’ve seen Georgia and Missouri both score 197s on multiple occasions this season, so Florida may not have quite the same luxury for counting mistakes that Oklahoma and LSU do. Still, with any kind of hit meet, Florida goes through, and counting a fall would probably be fine. Basically, the Gators just need to be sure to avoid another at-LSU situation, a repeat of which seems highly unlikely.

SECs provided us with a useful method to compare Florida and LSU to emphasize what Florida needs to improve to have a shot at the national title. Florida was a touch behind LSU on every piece at SECs, and in particular, landings on bars and balance checks on beam saw Florida’s scores suffer. (They honestly could have suffered more.) The Gators will take heart that those are very fixable problems and not built-in deductions, but we need to see an improvement in those areas for regionals. Continue reading Florida 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 17, 2017

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Friday, February 17
 Scores Watch
3:00 ET/12:00 PT – [16] Nebraska, Brown, Seattle Pacific, Lindenwood (@ St. Charles, MO) LINK FLOG
5:00 ET/2:00 PT – Yale, Springfield, Rhode Island @ Southern Connecticut SC $
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [3] Florida @ [23] Arkansas LINK SEC
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – NC State @ [8] Michigan LINK FREE
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [22] Iowa, Maryland, William & Mary, Pitt @ [20] George Washington LINK A10 $
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – New Hampshire @ North Carolina LINK ACC
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Eastern Michigan @ Northern Illinois LINK NIU $
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Hamline @ UW-Stout LINK FREE
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – [1] Oklahoma, [2] LSU, [10] Georgia, [15] Missouri (@ St. Charles, MO) LINK FLOG
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Centenary @ SEMO LINK FREE
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – Illinois State, Gustavus Adolphus @ Iowa State LINK ISU $
7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-Eau Claire @ Winona State FREE
8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Michigan State @ [21] Illinois LINK FREE
8:30 ET/5:30 PT – [17] Auburn @ [6] Alabama LINK SEC
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [7] Boise State @ Utah State LINK FLOG
9:00 ET/6:00 PT – BYU @ [13] Southern Utah LINK FREE
10:00 ET/7:00 PT – Alaska @ UC Davis LINK FREE

Opening proceedings today was the first session of the annual GymQuarters Yellow Font Mardi Gras Something Or Other. It’s obviously not a spelling test because I found this little winner on the event site.

da-fuq

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Nebraska managed a season-high out of this one with 197.125, which drops a 194.475 and makes the RQS picture look much more presentable. They still have a 194.800 hanging around (and a 195.700) but three meets left to get rid of them. Continue reading Friday Live Blog – February 17, 2017 →