Mid-season"ish" Womens NCAA check-in

[cuuf]

NQS getting ready to kick-in. Anything change or surprise you in your thoughts at the beginning of the season?

Some of my thoughts:

• More than in other seasons, OU is clearly above all other teams. That doesn't mean give them the trophy now, but in regards to consistency and level of performance, there is OU and a significant gap from the others.
• Along those lines, I will make a prediction, that the National Championship can only be won by 3 teams, OU, LSU and Cal. LSU has the team ceiling that can top OU even if OU is hitting, the problem is can LSU hit that ceiling? Cal is consistent and steady, and perhaps on a top day and a slightly off day for OU/LSU they can get that Natty.
• Kentucky has surprised me, yes they were getting Raena and Patterson back but the rest of the upperclassmen and the freshman additions have ticked up the performance level. UK is going to be playing around in the upper portion of the SEC for the near future for sure.
• Michigan is a head-scratcher. Their reliance on those super seniors and seniors for every meet is odd. I guess they are just putting the best gymnasts out and worrying about next year, next year, but it increasingly looks like they are not going to be able to leverage their national title into staying power of top programs. They will be competitive just not a consistent top 4 program.
• UCLA like Florida is having a "down" year. Both squads are feeling the loss of their Olympic hopefuls. I am surprised at how consistent Florida has been with increasing scores every week and liberal use of freshman class. Perhaps Jenny's best coaching job yet. Both squads have a better than high chance of making nationals, especially UF hosting regionals, but not sure about final 4.
• Utah is Utah, solid squad, I see them slightly above Florida and UCLA given their top-heavy upperclassmen. They need Rucker to start finding her vault form of old as she has seemed a bit off all season.
• Is LSU really going to lose all their super seniors/seniors this year? I still have trouble seeing why Bryant would not come back for 5th year, but she is her own person and indicated such in those meet interviews. And now Arenas is retiring?
• Good to see no major injury bugs plaguing teams. (knock on wood)
• Nationals squads: OU, LSU, Kentucky, Cal, Utah, Florida, UCLA, Denver
• Final Four: OU, LSU, Cal, Kentucky - OU National Champs

 

[blake]

I made a file to document running team totals/rankings by sum of the individual averages of the 5 and 6 gymnasts per event that compete each week. Not a perfect metric and it's a pain in the butt to fill out lol, but I think it captures how each team performs and ranks comparatively within the snapshot of the individual week in a more focused lense than NQS/normal average. I'd love feedback! There's a tab for each of the D1 conferences with the individual averages of all teams. I included NQS rankings for comparison as well.

Michigan is 6th in NQS, but only 12th in the 5 score format. They move up to 9th when you count the 6th score.

 

[blake]

I didn't anticipate Auburn looking as strong as they do. I for sure thought they'd be in the bottom fighting Georgia for 7th place.

Alabama hasnt been weak by any means, but I've been underwhelmed so far which surprised me because they added two top recruits on top of not losing any post season routines. They're solid, but every week it seems they have an event or two that gets stuck in the low 49s.

Georgia...I like this team for the first time in so long and they're outperforming what I expected with the injury bug in preseason, but they're also being saved by home scoring. Scott and Smith on bars are phenomenal anchors.

I am pleasantly surprised by how well Cal and UK are doing in the rankings. Rodriguez is a really great leadoff. Arizona built a solid foundation off that near regional final berth 2 years ago - they look better than I've ever seen them

 

[irichluck21]

I think it is impossible to make national predictions at this point until we have a clear picture of what the regionals assignments will look like, especially since we know for sure that Florida, Michigan, and Cal will for sure be seeded teams. Arkansas is currently seeded but at the lower end.

Like you have Oklahoma, LSU, Kentucky, Cal, Utah, Florida, UCLA, Denver all advancing but if the current seedings were the final seedings it would be impossible for Cal, UCLA, and Utah to all advance because they would be in the same regional final, so one would be out of nationals.

Right now it would be
1 Oklahoma
8 Michigan State 7 Michigan (host)
9 Alabama
16 Minnesota

3 California (host)
6 Florida 5 Utah
11 UCLA
14 Ohio State

2 LSU
7 Michigan 8 Michigan State
10 Denver
15 Arkansas (host)

4 Kentucky
5 Utah 6 Florida
12 Missouri
13 Auburn

But otherwise @cuuf I agree with almost all of what you wrote.

I do think you underestimate Michigan State and Ohio State. Both came within a few tenths of going to Nationals last year, Ohio State missing Kentucky by .1 and Michigan State missing UCLA by .150 and both squads are better this year than last year. Missouri also has what it takes to knock off a top seed.

Honestly it is getting to the point in NCAA parity that any team ranked in the top 16 can make it to Nationals on a given day. 14 Ohio State, 15 Arkansas, 16 Minnesota could all sneak in, especially with Arkansas as host. We have seen time and time again that hosting regionals certainly has advantages.

Then you have teams like Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon State, Penn State, Illinois that are currently out of the seeded placements but could do some damage if they hit 24 for 24 in a regional semi final to upset and advance to a regional final. Oregon State is particularly dangerous right now because Carey has only done all around twice so far and has been pacing herself, with Carey in the AA that bumps up their score quite a bit with auto 9.9-10.0 from her instead of counting a 9.7-9.8

 

[cuuf]

Good point on the seeding. Depending upon that, there might be some tough outs in the regionals.
I agree, Michigan State is right there for the 8th spot and would not be any surprise if they go a little higher. Ohio State has been positive trending, I am just not sure they are not still a year more before making their real debut.
One other surprise I thought about was Arkansas. I kinda felt they would be performing better, and they did start strong, but have been in a mid-season slump. But they have performed pretty well in the postseason under Wieber so we wil see what the back half has for them. I think two more years before she has enough recruiting star power to really make some noise.

I do love the parity. It is a statement of how well-prepared L10s are coming into college these days. Teams do not have to be stacked with elites to be competitive. And it makes for a much better TV product! I just wish OU would come back to the pack a little bit lol.

 

[navyblue]

a slightly off day for OU

What does this even look like though? Do we have an example of it happening in recent memory?
.... ok i did my own research, and I suppose it looks like the Oklahoma-Denver meet that saw Oklahoma average 9.835 on vault. The thing is, Oklahoma is of course overscored like everyone else, but their gymnastics is so freakin' clean that I think it holds up really well in head-to-head competitions, especially post-season when the judges get more stingy. I can't really envision any other team winning.

I don't really understand the Cal hype, I don't find any of those gymnasts to be particularly exciting this year, and I find the overall talent higher at LSU, Utah, Florida -- not to say the rankings are wrong because especially with Florida, the consistency hasn't been great.

I was rooting for Florida to win last year, and this year the best I can hope for is that they might make the final four.

I'm not sure whether Haleigh Bryant is actually better this year, or just no longer in the shadow of Trinity Thomas, but it feels well-deserved that she's emerged as the star of the entire NCAA. Her gymnastics is so fun to watch and just unique enough (in terms of skill choice) to feel exciting still.

 

[cuuf]

What does this even look like though? Do we have an example of it happening in recent memory?
.... ok i did my own research, and I suppose it looks like the Oklahoma-Denver meet that saw Oklahoma average 9.835 on vault. The thing is, Oklahoma is of course overscored like everyone else, but their gymnastics is so freakin' clean that I think it holds up really well in head-to-head competitions, especially post-season when the judges get more stingy. I can't really envision any other team winning.

Ya, was it last year's regional where they had an off-meet and finished second? I can't fully recall now lol. But I vaguely remember some controversy about that.

 

[blake]

Ya, was it last year's regional where they had an off-meet and finished second? I can't fully recall now lol. But I vaguely remember some controversy about that.

They won the Norman regional counting a fall on beam. It was controversial because they beat UK, Ohio St and Bama - all of which didn't count falls, but Florida won NCAAs in 2013 with a counting fall on beam, so it's not like it was the first time this has happened. That the gymternet tends to lean anti-OU helped make it a bigger deal with people speculating they might choke at nationals.

 

[BB12]

Ya, was it last year's regional where they had an off-meet and finished second? I can't fully recall now lol. But I vaguely remember some controversy about that.

They finished 2nd at Day 1 of Nationals last year after barely sticking a landing and Utah nailing almost all of them.

They won the Norman regional counting a fall on beam. It was controversial because they beat UK, Ohio St and Bama - all of which didn't count falls, but Florida won NCAAs in 2013 with a counting fall on beam, so it's not like it was the first time this has happened. That the gymternet tends to lean anti-OU helped make it a bigger deal with people speculating they might choke at nationals.

Someone on Twitter also made up a rumour that Lou Ball screamed at a line judges to stop them from putting up a flag on Ragan going OOB which fuelled the controversy despite multiple people at the meet (and not just OU fans) denying that it happened and the footage showing Ragan just stayed in.

 

[blake]

They finished 2nd at Day 1 of Nationals last year after barely sticking a landing and Utah nailing almost all of them.


Someone on Twitter also made up a rumour that Lou Ball screamed at a line judges to stop them from putting up a flag on Ragan going OOB which fuelled the controversy despite multiple people at the meet (and not just OU fans) denying that it happened and the footage showing Ragan just stayed in.

Woah I'd never heard that rumour!

 

[BB12]

Woah I'd never heard that rumour!

Good to know some of the crazy stuff on twitter stays there.

 

[irichluck21]

Oklahoma won regionals last year with a fall, while they should have advanced, Kentucky should have won and it was very close to Ohio State IMO.
Oklahoma has a talent of when they count a fall or a very low score (FX 2022 National Finals-no score above 9.9, counted 9.737) they rise to the occasion in the proceeding events and stick.

Really the only difference between Oklahoma and others in a final is they they tend to stick every dismount while others take valuable steps.

That said, I had Florida over Oklahoma last year even without Thomas on BB and FX. Imagine if Thomas was not injured.

 

[BB12]

With this season, I think LSU is OU's biggest competitor but they need to show they can consistently hit 198 away from home. They've only had 3 away meets but their highest away score is still lower than OU's lowest score of the season. A good as Cal, Kentucky and Utah are, LSU are the only team with big early lineup scores on every event that can match OU.

Florida and Michigan hosting a regional makes me fairly confident both will make Nationals. If I'm a 5-12 ranked team, I would be desperate to avoid their regionals. Arkansas are much stronger at home but I dont know if it will give them a big enough boost to qualify as the likely 4th seed.