Earlier this season, the data team analyzed the scores through week six to determine if scoring really was tighter in 2025. The numbers said yes, but the analysis warranted another look once the season had concluded. Fittingly, the season ended with a nationals competition where no gymnast went 10.0 outright. In anticipation of the next eight months of discourse, data editors Jenna King and Emma Hammerstrom analyzed score distributions in the regular season to answer the hottest question in the sport: Did scores get tighter in 2025? Former NCAA judge Rhiannon Franck joins us again to provide a judge’s perspective.
Methodology
Similarly to our last article, data editor Jenna King compiled all scores from the past four seasons (2022-2025). This time, we included every single score from the regular season. Data editor Emma Hammerstrom performed this analysis again on four levels: overall scoring, event-level scoring, conference scoring, and division scoring. For each of those levels and each season, she compiled average scores, the percentage of 9.900+ scores, and the distribution of scores ranging from 9.700-10.0.
Did scores get lower in 2025?
To start, we looked at the percentages of each score in the 2025 season from 9.700 to 10.0. The pink bar is the most important here, demonstrating the distribution of a specific score compared to the past three seasons. Overall, scores above 9.800 decreased compared to prior seasons. More scores ranging from 9.700-9.775 were rewarded in 2025 than in any of the prior three seasons.
How have the average scores changed over the years?
In our prior article, the data showed stability in the average score from 2022 to 2023, then a large jump in 2024, followed by about an equal drop in scores in 2025. That trend remained into the end of the season. 2025 had the lowest average score of any of the past three seasons. Again, it’s important to notice that the differences in average scores we’re seeing are mostly a half or quarter tenth, where a half tenth is the smallest deduction a judge can take.
Looking at the data by event, the overall pattern holds. Bars experienced the largest drop in average score in the 2025 season, and the largest drop across any event since at least 2023. Floor had the second-largest drop and was the one event where scores started climbing in 2023. The large decrease of a third of a tenth in 2025 is a start to correct for that score increase over the past two seasons, but it remains the event with the highest average score.
As compared to the first half of the season, the biggest difference we see is on beam. Beam showed no decrease from 2024 to 2025 in the first six weeks, however, scores in the second half of the season were lower and pulled down the year-over-year difference. Finally vault, although still showing a decline in average score, shows a less severe drop of -0.032 vs -0.053 from the first six weeks. This implies vault scores climbed the most during the second half of the season.
Similar to our prior analysis, the overall trend of the average score dropping slightly in 2025 is present on a divisional level. In the first half of 2023, Division II schools witnessed a large drop in average score, while Division I and III saw scores rise.
In our analysis of the first six weeks of the 2025 season, Division I had the largest drop in average score, however, looking at the full season the drop in Division I stayed relatively the same, while the drop in Division II increased 2x.
* Division III includes NCGA and NAIA teams.
Just like the first six weeks of the season, we saw variance in the change in average scores from conference to conference. It is expected that the conference-level analysis would bring more variance, since talent level on individual teams and within conferences can vary more between seasons. Some conferences saw average scores increase in 2025, going against the overall trend outlined above. As before, conferences were assigned based on a team’s current conference in 2025 (so for example, Stanford and California are represented in the ACC average score across all four years).
The Pac-12 (aka Oregon State) saw the biggest score increase (+0.014), possibly due to Jade Carey’s consistency this season. The WIAC and NCGA also saw average scores rise by at least 0.01 points.
The ACC saw a rise in average scores over the first six weeks of 2025 but ended up with a tiny decrease when accounting for the full regular season. The MAC saw the largest decrease in average score in 2025 by far. The GEC, EAGL, Big 12, and Big 10 saw large decreases as well.
Were fewer 9.900+ scores given out this season?
While lower average scores may or may not be as noticeable to viewers, lower rates of 9.9+ scores are more obvious. Scores tend to build across the season as gymnasts clean up their form and correct for the mistakes they made early in the season. Across all four events, we see a higher percent of 9.9+ scores than we did in the first six weeks, however the increase was less significant than in past years, implying scores did not climb quite as high as they had in years past.
Floor once again has the largest drop in 9.9+ scores. The drop of 7.44% is almost double the next largest drop of 3.56% on beam. In 2024, the percentage of 9.9+ scores increased from 15% to 20% from the first six weeks to the full season, while in 2025, it only increased from 9% to 12%. Vault saw the smallest increase in percent of 9.9+ scores as compared to the first six weeks, increasing from just 5.24% to 5.85%, implying judging remained the harshest on that event through the second half of the season.
The table below shows the percentage of 9.900+ scores given on each event in each season, and the difference columns demonstrate the changes across seasons.
Division I experienced a 5.4% decrease in 9.900+, while Division II had a smaller decrease of 1.1%. As we saw in our prior article, Division III was mostly unaffected, but this can be chalked up to the lower incidence of 9.900+ scores in that division.
Strikingly, every single conference saw a drop in 9.900+ scores by the end of the season. The largest drops occurred in the ACC, Big 12, MAC, and SEC, where incidence of 9.900+ scores dropped by 7% or more.
A Judge’s Perspective
At the beginning of the season, the WCGA rolled out the new Judge’s Evaluation System, or SCOREBoard, which promised to reform and improve judging across the board. After a problematic start and ultimately being reduced to a “pilot program” which would no longer provide feedback to judges or factor into post-season judging assignments, the 10.0s and higher scores seemed to be back after a slow start in the beginning of the season. Perhaps that slow start is still having an impact on the end of season numbers. Scoring also felt tighter in the postseason, with no perfect 10.0s during nationals and lower team totals for all four national finalists compared to 2024. Perhaps those who select postseason judges are valuing stricter judges rather than those who like to give everyone high scores. Maybe judges feel more empowered to take deductions due to a culture change among current NCAA judges. Or perhaps judges are more prepared to judge NCAA due to better educational opportunities and more consistent base scoring prior to walking out on the floor to judge a competition. Regardless of the true reason, I’m personally pleased to see the score inflation trends turning around, as accurate, fair, and consistent evaluation is essential to maintaining the integrity of the sport.
READ THIS NEXT: WCGA Releases SCORE Board Details
Article by Emma Hammerstrom, Rhiannon Franck, Claire Harmon, and Jenna King
