2025 Week 8: February 15-23

Anya Pilgrim was injured on vault. Jenny said she's being evaluated and out the rest of the meet. No idea what happened because instead of gymnastics we got the end of some shitty basketball game.

cftmoonlight79 · Friday at 8:54 PM

She was injured on bars. Fell awkwardly and then got up and finished routine.

cftmoonlight79 · Friday at 8:54 PM

Why do these judges hate Audrey Davis??? Robbed on bars and beam

RedBirdie · Friday at 9:01 PM

cftmoonlight79 said:
She was injured on bars. Fell awkwardly and then got up and finished routine.

Sorry, read the live scores wrong!

Sloane Blakely just hurt herself on floor. She crashed her tucked full in and immediately pointed to her foot. Awful.

cftmoonlight79 · Friday at 9:07 PM

Ugh Sloan.

RedBirdie · Friday at 9:49 PM

Whatever the judges were smoking in Norman tonight, I want some. Not sure I've seen such wildly incoherent scoring.

Lily Pederson's carriage and presentation is just so junior-ish. Yes, she's very small and peppy, but it's more than that. And it just seems incredibly strange in NCAA.

RedBirdie · Friday at 10:00 PM

Utah also cracked 198. Grace McCallum had three 9.975s. Definitely curious to see video.

cuuf · 2025-02-22T07:08:10-0600

Wow, that was downright painful watching Florida go through that. What a rough night for them. Last time it was V crashing into the vault table. Now this. They need a week off to mentally recover.

Good to see Bama showing something, even after horrible vault rotation. Looks like that 9 spot is going to be between Bama and Arkansas. Both teams have been a disappointment this year.

Best thing about Georgia is their consistency. They are not a top team, but they are showing a level of consistency that we havent seen in 10 years. So with their talent it puts them in the conversation.

Didnt see Utah, but internet believes it was only slightly overscored and their best meet.

I guess the exciting thing, heading into the home stretch of the regular season, is that it really does feel much more wide open as to who can win it all this year. LSU and OU are clearly the most talented and the highest ceiling, but they only seem to perform at peak at their home (understandable). So can make foro an exciting post-season.

ugadawgkat · 2025-02-22T10:38:06-0600

UGA should be ranked in the top 10 come Monday. Some naysayers on another thread said it would take 3-4 years for them to get to this point. Looks like the co-head coaches experiment may be working after all. They should also be ranked 5th or 6th in the hardest gymnastics conference in the land. While this may not hold until the end of the season it is safe to say at this point that they have found a consistency this year that was absent under CKC. Except for their first meet where they had to count a fall on beam by a freshman they have been on. Their team scores have steadily climbed with each meet expect one where they went down by .075. Now let's see if they can best that 197.350.

cuuf · 2025-02-22T15:21:39-0600

I guess I was one of the "naysayers" and I have no problem admitting if I missed on an opinion, but my argument is/was more against the popular narrative that Cecile was going to be some miracle maker than an outright failure. My argument is one of caution. I always stated that Cecile and Ryan were a good hire, but there were many unkowns (and still are, the season isnt done and one year is not a trend). I still believe, at best, UGA is 3-4 years before contending for anything if that. And I mean genuinely a threat to win versus some off nights by better teams (looking at you Arkansas). If you look at Georgia's results last year, they showed they had the talent with plenty of scores above 197. Their issue last year was the variability. If you look at the score graphs from last year to this year, you can see the variability is much tighter. So what that tells me is that Cecile and Ryan are doing a good job at getting the team consistent but they are not squeezing or making the gymnasts perform at a higher level than they already were. Remember, this is a team that returned everyone plus some good additions. They deserve credit for tightening the performance up and that alone will make Georgia a top 10 team with the regular talent they attract. But Georgia, while starved for that level of consistency right now, is not interested in being a regular top 10 team. I am still not sure if they will be successful as measured by winning a title.

Amber · 2025-02-23T09:16:54-0600

Any news on Sloan? Looked like het achilles. i had to slightly giggle at her getting up and just hopping to the lockerroom instead of laying on the floor, a very Sloan thing to do… hope it is not as serious as a ruptured achilles

ugadawgkat · 2025-02-23T14:10:49-0600

cuuf said:
I guess I was one of the "naysayers" and I have no problem admitting if I missed on an opinion, but my argument is/was more against the popular narrative that Cecile was going to be some miracle maker than an outright failure. My argument is one of caution. I always stated that Cecile and Ryan were a good hire, but there were many unkowns (and still are, the season isnt done and one year is not a trend). I still believe, at best, UGA is 3-4 years before contending for anything if that. And I mean genuinely a threat to win versus some off nights by better teams (looking at you Arkansas). If you look at Georgia's results last year, they showed they had the talent with plenty of scores above 197. Their issue last year was the variability. If you look at the score graphs from last year to this year, you can see the variability is much tighter. So what that tells me is that Cecile and Ryan are doing a good job at getting the team consistent but they are not squeezing or making the gymnasts perform at a higher level than they already were. Remember, this is a team that returned everyone plus some good additions. They deserve credit for tightening the performance up and that alone will make Georgia a top 10 team with the regular talent they attract. But Georgia, while starved for that level of consistency right now, is not interested in being a regular top 10 team. I am still not sure if they will be successful as measured by winning a title.

My optimistic outlook was never that UGA would be in contention for the national title. I was not one who thought Cecile would be a miracle worker but was hopeful that with the co-head coaching of Cecile and Ryan Georgia would improve to be in the top 10. At that time I was cautioned that this was too lofty a goal. Neither Cecile nor the AD at UGA expects Georgia to be in contention for the title this year. When Cecile took the job she told him that it would take time for UGA to get back to that place. (Time meaning obviously years.) I'm sure both Ryan and Cecile are not interested in Georgia being a regular top 10 team but everyone, including them knows you have to start somewhere right? It's very obvious that so far the co-head coach experiment is working. Trends aside Georgia is doing better this year than they have in a long time.

Arkansas does not appear to be a better team than Georgia this year. Georgia has had 1 off night: the first meet of the year when they had to count a fall on beam from a freshman. Arkansas has had 2 if not 3 off meets so they have clearly not been as consistent as Georgia. I much prefer a consistent and upward trend like UGA has than the up and down Arkansas has. In fact Arkansas' performance this year kind of reminds me of UGA's last year. I also recall the warranted criticism of CKC for Georgia’s lack of consistency last year. Now that they are being consistent it sounds like that’s not good enough to give them credit without gymnasts being pushed to compete at a higher level– And this with two people who literally just started their head coaching positions. Cecile and Ryan may not be turning Georgia into a national contender this year but my point is they are doing a darn good job in a brand new position with a lot of pressure. Being in the top 10 is no small feat. It seems a bit contradictory to be cautioned against saying that UGA is performing well enough to be in the top 10, and then say that but that’s where they should be performing afterall with all their talent. Just to reiterate my point UGA has two brand new head coaches and they are doing an excellent job so far. Surely the naysayers can concede this point.

A bit more proof: UGA's performances on bars and beam have been impressive this year. And I don't think it is a coincidence that those two events are coached by Ryan and Cecile. They have not scored below 49 all year on bars and only once below 49 on beam as mentioned above. Last meet they were lights out on both bars and beam with season highs on both: Beam: 49.475 and Bars: 49.550. Those kinds of scores constitute getting gymnasts to perform at a high level.

I get that the year is not over yet so Georgia still might fall back, have off nights etc. but as a UGA fan starved to see improvement, I’m pretty pleased right now.

jezmerallia · 2025-02-23T15:51:58-0600

Amber said:
Any news on Sloan? Looked like het achilles. i had to slightly giggle at her getting up and just hopping to the lockerroom instead of laying on the floor, a very Sloan thing to do… hope it is not as serious as a ruptured achilles

It seemed like a fight or flight response to me. She seemed panicked and appeared to be saying the same thing over and over before hopping away. To me, it looked like she didn't feel safe and left.

cuuf · 2025-02-23T15:57:39-0600

ugadawgkat said:
My optimistic outlook was never that UGA would be in contention for the national title. I was not one who thought Cecile would be a miracle worker but was hopeful that with the co-head coaching of Cecile and Ryan Georgia would improve to be in the top 10. At that time I was cautioned that this was too lofty a goal. Neither Cecile nor the AD at UGA expects Georgia to be in contention for the title this year. When Cecile took the job she told him that it would take time for UGA to get back to that place. (Time meaning obviously years.) I'm sure both Ryan and Cecile are not interested in Georgia being a regular top 10 team but everyone, including them knows you have to start somewhere right? It's very obvious that so far the co-head coach experiment is working. Trends aside Georgia is doing better this year than they have in a long time.

Arkansas does not appear to be a better team than Georgia this year. Georgia has had 1 off night: the first meet of the year when they had to count a fall on beam from a freshman. Arkansas has had 2 if not 3 off meets so they have clearly not been as consistent as Georgia. I much prefer a consistent and upward trend like UGA has than the up and down Arkansas has. In fact Arkansas' performance this year kind of reminds me of UGA's last year. I also recall the warranted criticism of CKC for Georgia’s lack of consistency last year. Now that they are being consistent it sounds like that’s not good enough to give them credit without gymnasts being pushed to compete at a higher level– And this with two people who literally just started their head coaching positions. Cecile and Ryan may not be turning Georgia into a national contender this year but my point is they are doing a darn good job in a brand new position with a lot of pressure. Being in the top 10 is no small feat. It seems a bit contradictory to be cautioned against saying that UGA is performing well enough to be in the top 10, and then say that but that’s where they should be performing afterall with all their talent. Just to reiterate my point UGA has two brand new head coaches and they are doing an excellent job so far. Surely the naysayers can concede this point.

A bit more proof: UGA's performances on bars and beam have been impressive this year. And I don't think it is a coincidence that those two events are coached by Ryan and Cecile. They have not scored below 49 all year on bars and only once below 49 on beam as mentioned above. Last meet they were lights out on both bars and beam with season highs on both: Beam: 49.475 and Bars: 49.550. Those kinds of scores constitute getting gymnasts to perform at a high level.

I get that the year is not over yet so Georgia still might fall back, have off nights etc. but as a UGA fan starved to see improvement, I’m pretty pleased right now.

We are pretty much in agreement, I think the only difference is you are coming from it as a true UGA fan versus a random observer. If I put myself in your shoes I would be happy and optimistic about the co-head coach experiment so far. Certainly, there is no reason right now to say it won't work. As I said, they are to be commended for bringing some consistency to the line-ups. I slightly disagree on your top 10, although I again understand as a starved fan it feels amazing. But top 10 is definitely the floor for a program like Georgia, after all, if CKC was producing top 10 teams, would she have been let go?

An honest hypothetical question, what if in 3-4 years this is as far as they climb? How long do they get before critcism sets in or in another way, what is the Georgia's fan definition of program success? Lets say they make top 8 nationals one year (definitely doable if they are hosting a regional in that time frame) but other years just outside or never advance to the final 4? I mean its probably question for all fan-bases. Like I am sure folks are frustrated with Rowland (small probably but enough) and Jordan at Arkansas is what 6 years in with objectively little to show. We all hear the chatter about year 3 at Bama. What do you define a coaching staff and a successful program?