Essentials

WHAT	Semi-Final Session II: #3 Michigan #2 Florida #7 Auburn #11 Missouri
WHERE	Dickies Arena Fort Worth, TX
WHEN	Semis: 6:00 ET Finals: Sat, 1:00 ET
THE LINE	No lines, degenerate
TELEVISION	Semis on ESPN2 Finals on ABC
TICKETS	exist
WEATHER	Gymnastics is typically an indoor sport

OVERVIEW

So your fingernails were starting to grow back after the Frozen Four, eh? Well that’s a shame. Because here we go again.

The reigning National Champions return to the site of their previous triumph, the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. But this time they will be facing a fully weaponized Florida with a healthy Trinity Thomas, a rejuvenated Oklahoma juggernaut, a team that has never not been to Nationals, and the reigning Olympic All-Around Champion.

Yeah.

THE BASICS

The eight teams will compete in a pair of four team semi-final sessions today. The top two teams from each session will advance to Saturday’s final, regardless of whether Team #3 in one session has a better score than Team #2 in the other session. Scores are wiped clean between today and Saturday, so everyone starts fresh. A classic “survive and advance” scenario.

To review: each team performs six routines on each of the four events (vault, bars, beam, and floor). Six judges score every routine, with the high and low score being thrown out and the remaining scores averaged to give the score for that routine. The lowest of each team’s six scores on each event is dropped, with the remaining five scores being added together for an event score out of 50 points. The four events are combined for a total team score out of a possible 200 points.

For those of us who do words more than numbers, and for whom math is a scary place, here’s a shorthand: the winning score will almost certainly be slightly north of 198.000, meaning that keeping pace will require about a 49.500 on each event. That’s an average score of 9.900 for every routine. Stay above that line, and everyone is happy. A team rotation score below about 49.200 is problematic. A team that has to count a fall on an event (meaning they have two athletes fall, forcing them to use one of those two scores) is in deep trouble on today, and is dead in the water on Saturday.

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THE US

When we last checked in with Michigan, they were humming along quite nicely, grabbing a #1 ranking and holding it for the first eight weeks of the year. Since then, they won the Big Ten regular season, lost to #1 Oklahoma on the road, beat Auburn at home, and won the Big Ten Tournament-type meet (that Big Ten meet win was part of the Day Of Jubilee that included the MBB win over Tennessee, the hockey win over Minnesota to win the Big Ten Tournament, the WBB win over American, and the Nick Suriano national title). In terms of raw scores, other than one wonky vault performance at Nebraska, Michigan has been posting consistently good-to-excellent results. But they have fallen off their frenetic pace ever so slightly.

Michigan is coming of a Regional performance that was… fine. It was the kind of performance that would get a team through Regionals about 90% of the time, would get a team to the Final Four (the “Four on the Floor,” which is an objectively cool name for a competition) about 50% of the time, and would bring the big wooden trophy home about 0% of the time. Their 197.400 in the Regional Semi-final wouldn’t have gotten them through to Nationals if it had taken place two days later, but that doesn’t matter. They advanced. They are in Texas. All is well.

Our mid-season breakdown of the roster is largely unchanged today. The core rotation of Natalie Wojcik, Sierra Brooks, Abby Heiskell, Naomi Morrison, and Gabby Wilson continue to soak up the vast majority of the routines. I would expect the first four to compete in the all-around (i.e. compete on all four events), with Wilson competing on three. The only real changes from mid-season is that Wilson has fallen out of the bar rotation, and that Jacey Vore has entered the beam lineup in place of Reyna Guggino.

The “Heisman Trophy” of gymnastics, the most prestigious award in the sport, the AAI Award, goes to our very own @wojcik_natalie!!!

: https://t.co/IRbSpoJ7Ew#GoBlue 〽️ pic.twitter.com/bPktoWHnJN

— Michigan Women’s Gymnastics (@UMichWGym) April 13, 2022

Despite Wojcik winning the gymnastics equivalent of the Heisman Trophy, it’s hard to say whether she or Sierra Brooks has had a better season. Brooks is ranked 3rd nationally in the all-around, behind only the two Olympians (Jade Carey and Suni Lee), and is in the Top 10 on vault and floor. Wojcik is in the Top 10 on vault, bars and beam.

The one glaring issue that emerged over the last half of the season has been the beam. Michigan is #1 nationally on vault, #1 on floor, #4 on bars… and #11 on beam.  And, if anything that understates the problem; Michigan has had exactly one fall in 5 of their last 8 beam rotations. That’s playing with fire and courting disaster, not to mention fraying fans’ nerves. 

That said, the painful randomness of gymnastics cuts both ways; Michigan posted a season-high 49.550 on beam in the Regional semi-final. They CAN post big scores on all four events.

THE THEM

As is typically the case in NCAA women’s gymnastics, the remaining teams are, by and large, the best teams. Seven of the top eight teams entering the Regionals advanced, with the lone upset being #6 LSU getting knocked out in the Regional Semi-Final by Iowa, allowing #11 Missouri to grab the final spot.

The headliner in Session II is #2 Florida, who mashed the gas pedal in late February and has not let up. The Gators knocked off #1 Oklahoma in a duel meet on January 25th, and in the five meets they have competed in since that day, they have averaged a total team score of 198.33. Their regional final score of 198.775 was the third highest score in NCAA history; not for a regional meet, mind you… ever. They don’t have any glaring weaknesses; they’re ranked in the top 3 nationally on all four events. They are led by Trinity Thomas, who has been nearly flawless over the past two months; of her last 32 competitive routines, 30 have scored a 9.90 or higher. She also has ten (!) perfect 10’s on the season, including four (!!) out of her eight routines at Regionals.

Michigan has already seen the other two members of Session II this season. Michigan defeated #7 Auburn comfortably on March 12 by about three-quarters of a point on the strength of a program-record 49.700 on floor. The Tigers Who are Also War Eagles Because It Just Means More are led by Olympic Champion Suni Lee, who has lived up to expectations as one of the best in the country. Overall, Auburnhas been among the more consistent teams in the country; excluding a season-opening clunker, they haven’t scored lower than a 197.175 all season. But they’ve only broken 198.000 once, in a bizarro Senior Night scoring-fest with Florida, where BOTH teams went 198.575.

(NOTE: Is this where I discuss the issue of overscoring in gymnastics, and particularly in the SEC? Because scores this year got absolutely out of control. In most years over the past decade, a handful of teams would break 198.000 on a handful of occasions. It used to be the mark of an a truly outstanding team performance. Between 2005 and 2012, all of women’s college gymnastics combined for a grand total of three 198s. Between 2013 and 2021, an average of four teams per year broke 198, with no single year producing more than five teams who eclipsed that mark. This year nine different teams broke 198 a total of 30 times. Between 2005 and 2021, not a single team went higher than 198.500. This year four teams broke that mark, including three on the same day.

Now, does this matter? Yes and no. No because scores are all relative, so as long as the same criteria are applied to everyone at a given meet, the actual number is irrelevant. But yes, because it changes what kind of performance wins. It minimizes the advantage gained by the truly great routine over a pretty good one, and it maximizes the punishment for having to count even modest errors.

Also, is it kinda dumb that gymnastics has a scoring system that basically ranges from 194 to 198? A little. And does it grate on my brain that gymnastics scores show all the extra significant figures like it’s a dang high school chemistry question? Also yes. It can be a 9.9. It doesn’t need to be a 9.90000000000. But one battle at a time, folks.)

#11 Missouri is probably the least likely of any of the eight teams to make the four-team Final. The Tigers Who Are Just Tigers And Don’t Get A Supplemental Animal Mascot have the lowest scoring average of any of the finalists, as well as the lowest high score on the year (a 197.675). Fun Fact: Missouri’s head coach, Shannon Welker, was an assistant coach at Michigan under Bev Plocki from 2008-2013.

THE OTHER THEMS

If Michigan advances, they’ll be joined by two of #1 Oklahoma, #4 Utah, #5 Alabama, and #8 Minnesota.

Oklahoma has won 4 of the last 7 national titles, and has finished either first or second for 8 consecutive years. Jordan Bowers is the #1 ranked vaulter in the country, and Audrey Davis is #2 on beam. They real good. Oklahoma will be in the Finals.

Utah is at Nationals for the 38th(!!!) consecutive year. Seriously. Utah has made Nationals (which meant Top 12 for most of the history of Women’s College Gymnastics) every single year that the NCAA has held Nationals. Every one. That’s astounding. Grace McCallum is their best athlete, and she’ll be in the running for the Individual All-Around crown.

Minnesota, on the other hand, is at Nationals for only the fifth time, and is looking for their first ever Finals appearance. They probably doesn’t have the horses to compete with the other three teams.

Alabama lost to Georgia in the national championship game, but that is understandable given Georgia’s generationally talented defense.

INTANGIBLES

THE KEYS

AHHHHHHH U STAY ON THE BEAM

Stay on the beam.

Seriously, survive beam on Thursday, and Survive+ the beam on Saturday

An average day for Michigan on the beam (about a 49.300, or just over a 9.85 average), combined with a good day everywhere else, would probably be good enough to make it to Saturday. Bringing home the hardware will probably require more. Michigan has been better on beam since a mid-February lull, with four of their last five scores being 49.375 or higher.

But if Michigan is going to count a fall anywhere, it will almost certainly be on beam. One fall, no problem. Two falls, no bueno.

Natalie Wojcik needs to return to form.

She’s had a few uneven performances in the past month, which happens to even the best gymnasts… but it can’t happen this week. Michigan can’t win without a pair of big afternoons from Wojcik.

Put out the A-Team

Michigan has done a great deal of lineup tinkering in the back half of the year, which is both normal and smart in the leadup to Nationals. But this week, expect Michigan to shorten the bench and ride their horses.

Stay on beam

Not sure how. So narrow. So high.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

Predicting women’s gymnastics is a fool’s errand. There are realistically four, or MAYBE five teams in the running to take home the hardware. Most observers (including this one) would be surprised if Florida, Michigan, and Oklahoma didn’t reach the Finals, with either Utah or Alabama joining them. If Auburn really hits (or if they have a good day and either Michigan or Florida has a particularly bad one), the EagleTigers could be competing on Saturday. Missouri and Minnesota would be the only shockers.

Once Saturday arrives… lol yeah no clue. Jumpy Flippy Plinko.