Can someone explain how SEMO won USAG team title?

[nog]

SEMO wins 2021 USA Gymnastics Women's Collegiate National Championship

A year of hardship and uncertainty finally came to a crescendo on Saturday at the Show Me Center. Southeast Missouri women's gymnastics ended the dramatic day as winners of the 2021 USA Gymnastics Women's Collegiate National Championships with a team score of 195.025...

www.semoball.com

I’m confused. This is not meant to sound rude. I am just genuinely confused. SEMO is a D1 program. I thought this championship was fir D2 and D3 teams only. How was semo even competing there?

 

[Caligym]

It’s also open to D1 schools who don’t offer a full slate of athletic scholarships(less than 7 1/2) which is fairly equivalent to the 6 scholarships that D2 schools offer.

 

[irichluck21]

SEMO also won in 1987 and 1991.

As Caligym pointed out, all divisions are eligible as long as they don’t go over the maximum scholarships.

USAG championships took over after NCAA cancelled both the D2 and D3 national championships.

Other division 1 winners were:
Denver-1983
Jacksonville State- 1984 and 85
UC Davis- 1999
Air Force- 2001 and 2002
Rutgers- 2004
Towson-2007
Cornell- 2009 (tied with Bridgeport)

 

[nog]

thank you! That makes sense.

 

[irichluck21]

Yeah it is easy to confuse it especially when there used to be a separate D2 and D3 championship.

 

[nog]

That’s what I was thinking. That you had to be D2 or D3 to compete for this. Not sure how I feel about D1 teams competing against them for this

 

[nog]

Ok…Anna kaziska competed at the regional meet in Utah. Don’t these teams have to decide which nationals they are going to try and compete in? How is it fair for those D1 teams to compete in both?

 

[irichluck21]

Division 2 can also compete at regionals so it is equality for everyone. A few individual Division 3 gymnasts have made it to Regionals as individuals in the past.

Lindenwood made regionals as a full team in 2019 as the 3rd D2 program in history.

Bridgeport made it in 2013 IIRC and Seattle Pacific in 1987 (they also won D2 Nationals that year).

Both NCAA regionals and USAG are based on NQS. There are normally a lot more full teams at USAGs, 8 total with two sessions of 4, top 2 from each session to final four team finals. Many individuals attend as well.

I don’t know what the issue is with you wanting to separate them.

Often times D2 schools outrank D1 schools.
Lindenwood 44 and Texas Woman’s 48th out ranked Pitt, Bowling Green, San Jose State, Stanford, Air Force, Long Island, Michigan State, William and Mary. With Lindenwood outranking Northern Illinois, George Washington, and South East Missouri.

SEMO won this year but was not favored to do so, they did primarily because they had a consistent meet and also hit their best event (beam) cold in the final rotation. Lindenwood beam rotation was a disaster with half the team falling. They ended up having to count two falls into the team total.
Even with the two beams falls, Lindenwood was just .2 away from the win.
The past several years have been dominated by D2 schools, Lindenwood, Texas Womans, and Bridgeport who won 6 in a row IIRC. These three teams often defeated D1 schools on their way to the team title.

Many of the division 2 schools focus on certain sports and highlight them.

In Tumbling and Acro, Baylor is the powerhouse and is division 1. But the rest of the top 10 currently are Division 2 and Division 3 schools even outranking some division 1 schools.

 

[nog]

Thank you for the detailed history. I guess I just see it as doubling. To go to both USAG nationals and to ncaa. I get what you’re saying. And I agree that many D2 schools are very great teams (LU is usually a formidable team). Just have an issue with teams (of any division) doing multiple routes to nationals. I get that they are not breaking any rules, that’s not what I’m saying.

 

[irichluck21]

I also get what you are saying, but other sports have similar championships too.

For example, all D1-D3 are technically eligible for March Madness, but traditionally the D3 teams are not able to contend with the top tier, so they have their own tournament.

With March Madness, those teams that are not selected for the tournament might be selected for the NIT championship instead.