Questions, Comments, Concerns: Week 1

The first week of season always feels so hectic. Despite the many byes, the lineup surprises and freshman debuts pull our attention in a million directions and we don’t have the reassuring rhythm of a conference schedule as we move through the weekend. Here’s what I’m watching, anticipating, and worrying about from our eventful first weekend.

Question: Where in the world are the Cal freshmen?

Picture this: You sign two phenomenal five-star recruits. One is an active international elite and a balanced all arounder. The other brings a perfect 10 and multiple 39+ all around scores at the level 10 level in addition to a 10.0 SV vault and two different E passes on floor. You feature them heavily in training updates. They both compete at your intrasquad, though they’re not aggressively placed in lineups and they don’t look incredibly clean. Come meet day, they’re nowhere to be found, not even in exhibition spots. What happened?

This isn’t an isolated incident for the Bears. Casey Brown, whose level 10 peak score was a 39.325(!), competes only vault, and that occasionally. Abbey Scanlon competed at U.S. nationals as an elite multiple different times and is rarely seen doing gymnastics at all. It might not be over for the freshman class: If there are injuries at play that we don’t know about, we might see a more progressive introduction to lineups in the style of Ella Cesario. But it still seems odd to be running lineups with four all arounders on a team that doesn’t actually have depth concerns. Cal has been moving toward this very dense lineup style lately and has certainly left talent on the bench in the process, but with these freshmen it’s especially striking. Historically I associate lineups like that with small rosters where talent is highly concentrated, perhaps also carrying major injuries. Cal is none of those things. So why voluntarily compete only eight gymnasts with former five star recruits sitting on the bench? Are there injuries we don’t know about? Perhaps pacing or development issues? Or is this just a slightly baffling win-now strategic move to intentionally avoid any unknowns, even in January? I don’t understand

Bonus Questions:

Where are a whole bunch of other freshmen I also wanted to see?

Kylie Coen. Holly Snyder. Courtney McCann. Jessica Naranjo. Lyden Saltness. Madison Perkins. Gabriella Ladanyi. Mya Witte and Sydney Jelen. Emma Misenheimer and Isabella Trostel. Apparently now also the entire Stanford freshman class. Many questions! 

Does the EMU SID have any idea how funny they are?

This tweet was one of my favorite moments of the weekend. Quickly deleted but never forgotten. 

Comment: Look at you at No. 1 in the SEC, Missouri!

There’s so much to love about Mizzou’s opening performance. Jocelyn Moore being absent at last month’s Black and Gold intrasquad admittedly spooked me a bit, but she’s not just fine but great. Bars depth has progressed to the point that Amari Celestine doesn’t have to compete that event any more, but instead she debuted beam and looked great. Mara Titarsolej made her SEC debut with two solid hits.

There’s definitely room to grow here, too. I loved Jalene Jachna’s 10.0 SV vault at intrasquad, and she just exhibitioned in this opening meet. Sooner or later the judges will realize that Titarsolej is a god and behave accordingly. Staying ahead of teams like LSU is a big ask as the season progresses, but doing it now is still a real achievement, and I hope the Tigers take some time this week to stare at the “No. 3” next to their name before going back to whatever it was they were doing before, because clearly the plan is working.

Bonus Comments:

I’m loving the “hold the stick before shifting your feet to salute” rule. Cheating sticks by immediately pulling the heels together has long been one of my least favorite things in NCAA gymnastics, and based on week 1, I’m optimistic about this rule change’s ability to tackle the issue. There are definitely limits: the “movement too small for us to want to take the deduction” and the “that was just the mat bouncing, we won’t deduct for that” type landings will still get called sticks. (Chae Campbell’s vault this week is a great example.) I’d prefer not to see those either, but so far, it looks like progress.

BYU floor had me worried for a minute there. For the first few routines of this season, the Cougar floor routines just weren’t very… weird. I wasn’t seeing the incredible commitment to incredibly out-there music choices that usually make BYU floor memorable and I missed it. Sydney Benson’s Macklemore routine in the anchor position made up for it, though. Props to her. 

Concern: Are we going to have to deal with more Virtius?

I used the Virtius live scoring system a couple of times last year. I didn’t really get it. I didn’t like the amount of clicking I had to do to find any information, I found it visually very cluttered (who cares what the scoring difference between UCLA’s second vault and Auburn’s second vault is?) and I couldn’t find live standings anywhere. I figured at that time that the issues were mine and I just didn’t properly know how to use it yet.

That is not the case. There is actually no live standings display at all for meets with more than two teams (i.e. the majority of WAG meets that this system has been used for.) There is no way to see how all four teams in a quad are doing at the same time. There’s no home display at all to find event leaders, rotation scores, etc without clicking into each individual event or team page. In fact, it’s two clicks every time you want to see a different team in a quad, because you need to change both team and rotation. Every. Single. Time. You end up doing more clicking than watching gymnastics.

I’ve been told that the issues are because the system was designed for MAG dual meets. If so, they can keep it. It’s wonderful if it works for somebody, but in the context in which we’ve mostly seen it, it’s a massive downgrade over the existing options. StatBroadcast is still relatively click-heavy and Sidearm is visually just a Word document, but they both deliver the information. Even the classic Stanford live scores that were literally just a spreadsheet that someone typed the scores into were more functional. There are good things about Virtius: I appreciate seeing lineups, and you can’t deny that it’s visually superior to the existing options, but the more I try to use it, the more these things feel like window dressing over its fundamental unsuitability for its purpose. I dread having to use it more this season.

Bonus Concerns:

Is the wolf jump one and a half going to be a real trend on floor this season? Because I’ve seen a lot of them and I’m getting a bad feeling that I’m going to see more.

Georgia… Look, I really don’t want to bang on the Georgia personnel thing again. The horse is dead. But the vibe at the moment is not good.

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Article by Rebecca Scally