Farewell, regular season. You were just the right length. As much as it’s always startling to realize it’s suddenly conference weekend, we’d pretty much maxed out on regular-season storylines. There are some people who are going to wish last weekend back (more on that later), but I’m not one of them. We have lots of new material for interrogation, consideration, and speculation with the advent of the postseason.
Question: How dangerous is Denver going to be at regionals?
Denver is officially going to be unseeded. Does anyone need to worry about that? I’m not sure.
It goes without saying that this has been a disappointing season for the Pioneers. They never seemed to have a coherent plan for replacing the Jessica Hutchinson routines, with just one freshman on the roster who has done no routines. Consistency has been an issue, and I imagine that behind the scenes there has been some consideration of load management on the large group of fifth years since lineups have remained a little variable.
There is a reasonably high ceiling, though. No other unseeded teams have a season-high anywhere near Denver’s 197.525 from that Utah meet, and even on its worst day, Denver is seriously great at bars. Is that enough to stand a chance of upsetting someone like Stanford? I honestly haven’t decided yet, but both Denver and rankings neighbor Michigan are more intriguing unseeded floaters than we get most years.
Bonus Questions:
Does Michigan State have another gear? The Spartans have had moments of greatness throughout this season but have slid down the rankings as other teams have ramped up. How many other teams’ season-high is from January? If the rankings hold and it’s something like Michigan State versus Kentucky for the final spot at nationals, the Spartans still have a chance—but most other teams in that rankings range have looked much more focused lately.
Why did the SEC coaches approve this championship format if they apparently don’t like it? My theory is that all nine of them were just extremely confident that it couldn’t possibly be their team that landed at the bottom and didn’t feel the need to reflect on what the repercussions would be for the team that did.
Comment: The stakes couldn’t be higher in the SEC.
All the narratives are colliding this week. Florida and LSU can both threaten Oklahoma’s No. 1 ranking as well as, obviously, fighting for the title. We get a neutral site that isn’t directly in one of the major contenders’ backyard, which is so nice. Getting all of this season’s heavy hitters in a room at the same time before nationals is also exciting. I’m not admitting that I like conference realignment. But for this stretch of two hours, it’ll be pretty neat.
LSU has five 198s this season, but last weekend’s was the only one that came outside the state of Louisiana. Oklahoma also had a signature road result last weekend, and Florida got a season-high by half a point. The stars are all aligning for this to be a really memorable meet. Which is great, because none of the other big conferences look like they’re going to be close at all.
Bonus Comments:
The MAC is, as usual, anyone’s game. The top four teams in this conference are separated by less than three-tenths in NQS. It’s usually one of the more exciting conference meets, and this year should be much the same. It’s a pity about the absolutely horrible format.
Thank goodness for this year’s wide-open regionals bubble. Watching regionals scenarios is one of the most exciting parts of conference weekend, and this year we have plenty of them. It’s not always quite this wide-open; there are 12 teams fighting for the last three spots. It’s going to be awesome. Tune into our “regionals qualification live blog” throughout the two days of competition.
Concern: This close to the end of the season, missed opportunities really stand out.
Every meet is so important now that the number of meets remaining is so low. George Washington had a double-meet weekend and could have launched itself to the top of the regionals bubble if not to outright qualification. Instead, the Revolutionaries (I’m not used to that yet, are you?) failed to get an NQS score in either meet. Washington looked en route to a season-high before a disaster on bars and once again couldn’t get itself to the right side of the regionals cut. Alabama has had repeated opportunities in the last few weeks to launch itself into the middle of the SEC and has instead been doing just enough to remain at No. 8. These are the weeks those teams might find themselves looking back on in May.
Bonus Concerns:
Why is Illinois slumping? The Illini looked like they’d got their season figured out last month, with three 196-plus scores in a row at one point. Now in March, they’re back to doing some of their worst gymnastics. There were a couple of important gymnasts absent this week, but the problem extends further than one meet. Even freshman phenom Chloe Cho has been missing more routines in March. I don’t know if it’s fatigue or what, but the slide down the rankings over the last month has been disappointing.
There’s no way Jade Carey is actually getting a fifth year… right? My understanding had definitely been that you couldn’t get both a redshirt year and a COVID year from 2021 specifically. But I also know that the NCAA feels perfectly entitled to break its own rules when it comes to appeals. I was just ready to move on from the concept of COVID years, you know?
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Article by Rebecca Scally
