Besides being about family, food and fun, Christmas is a time for giving. So we decided to bring you the 25 days of things we want to see from the 2016 NCAA gymnastics season! We’ll be posting one per day starting Dec. 1 until the 25th, and you don’t want to miss a single one. So without further ado, we give you the things we want to see out of the upcoming season.
Day 1For Brittany Rogers to compete every release she trained this summer in one routine. OK, we know that’s not going to happen, but at least she can get a 10.0 on bars this year. Or a few.
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Day 2Leotards we can drool over. We want sparkles and bling and shiny material. Bring on the blindness.
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Day 3For Georgia to get a 197 at the first meet, so I don’t spend every week writing previews about getting over the 197 hump and meet recaps about finishing just short.
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Day 4No torn ACLs from anyone trying to compete a Yurchenko one and a half who isn’t ready.
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Day 5On that note, no one competing a harder vault poorly just to get an extra half tenth in start value.
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Day 6Real talk in interviews. Do you seriously want to be known as the gymnast who’s only opinion is that you want to take it one meet at a time and do it for your team? We know! Give us something good!
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Day 7For Katelyn Ohashi, Lexie Priessman and Sarah Finnegan to finally compete again and stay in one piece.
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Day 8Give that perfect 10 to Chayse Capps on beam already, won’t you? It’s only a formality at this point.
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Day 9While you’re at it with the perfect marks, we’d love some Ivana Hong redemption 10s for the one she was robbed of at the NCAA championships in 2015.
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Day 10For Arizona to do well under new head coach Tabitha Yim and finally break into the top 12 at NCAAs or at least the top four at Pac-12s.
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Day 11For McKenna Kelley’s name not to be accompanied by “daughter of Mary Lou Retton” every single time she competes. She’s her own person too.
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Day 12No more faux-tens. Like for vaults that have hops. *cough cough*
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Day 13For the Gym Dogs to start the season with full difficulty. We know it’s the plan, but you never know with them.
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Day 14For Bridget Sloan to annihilate everyone, win everything and end her gymnastics career on top.
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Day 15Ebee Price for AA 2k16.
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Day 16Unparalleled TV coverage. Step one was getting NCAA gym on TV, so let’s make it the best it can be. Whether it’s the SEC Network, PAC-12 Networks or just a live stream during regionals, give it to us as best you can.
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Day 17For the scores to be reasonable. Or at least somewhat. Is that too much to ask for, judges?
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Day 18For Taylor Rice to bring the sass more than ever before (is that even possible?). Make it rain, Taylor.
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Day 19Variety! No more double tuck after double pike after Rudi. Or back handspring layout stepout after gainer full. There’s so many gymnasts that can do so many different skills. Use them!
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Day 20That variety goes for floor music too. How about we not use the most popular pop song on the radio or Requiem for a Dream. Again. Bring us more Nina McGee and Chayse Capps and Miss Val Choreography!
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Day 21For it to finally be Michigan’s year. After seeming to always fall just short of the Super Six, we want to see the Wolverines put together a solid season and have all that hard work pay off at nationals with a top six finish.
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Day 22Bring back event finals! OK, so we know this is most likely not going to happen — at least this season. But we can hope, right?
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Day 23No more beamplosions. We can’t expect teams to completely eliminate the beam mistakes, but let’s not have any three- or four-fall rotations, OK?
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Day 24For UCLA to do another Miss Val Reads Tweets video. Or for every coach to do a reading tweets video. We need more of that.
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Day 25Exciting matchups! Maybe it’ll be Auburn finally, finally beating Alabama or a super underdog beating a top-ranked powerhouse — just give us something to cheer about!
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