#3 M Gymnastics wins the first-ever B1G Regular Season Championship

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on March 24th, 2019 at 12:24 AM

The B1G Champion is determined by the B1G Championship meet held annually since 1907. 

Women's gymnastics instituted a B1G regular season championship back in 2013 in an effort to get every team in the conference to face each other during the regular season as no teams were ever required to face all of the other B1G teams in a season. It made the regular season a lot more fun.

Bev Plocki and Michigan Women's Gymnastics have owned that crown, winning 5 of the 8 ever up for grabs including winning a 3rd straight a month ago.

For the first time ever B1G Men's Gymnastics followed the women in the offseason and instituted a regular season championship for the 2018-19. 

Michigan Men's Gymnastics had been a dynasty in the early part of this decade, winning NCAA National Championships in 2010, 2013 & 2014 as well as B1G Championships in 2013 & 2014. The program naturally took a bit of a dip after all of the gymnasts who won those championships graduated. The team was very young and struggled for a couple seasons going 6-20 in 2016 and 8-17 in 2017.

A winning season last year of 15-8 and runner-up at the B1G Championships showed major progress in the direction of rekindling the M Gym Dynasty. 

The Michigan Men REALLY are on their way back now.

After a runner-up finish behind defending B1G Champion Illinois to open the season at the Windy City Invitational, Michigan opened B1G Conference play with an impressive 413.150-408.300 road win at #7 Minnesota on January 26. 

The Wolverines followed it up with a home-opening win over #8 Ohio State a week later, 413.900-402.700 to move to 2-0 in the B1G. 

Michigan stumbled at home against #10 Iowa 3 weeks ago for their first B1G loss, a narrow one of 408.250-408.000. All hope was nearly lost for the inaugural B1G title last weekend in the MASSIVE tri-meet held at PSU. #3 Michigan was behind #4 Penn State and #5 Illinois heading into the final rotation but overcame a 5.95 point deficit to come from behind and knock off both teams and take the meet. 

#3 Michigan had a tough showing today on pommel horse and lost at #7 Nebraska today, 408.700-403.800. But thankfully Minnesota knocked off Iowa in Minneapolis and that gave the Wolverines a share of the title. 

With a 4-2 record, Michigan is the first-ever B1G Regular Season Champion along with Minnesota and Iowa. 

In two weeks the Wolverines will head down to Iowa City for the B1G Championships and look to capture their first B1G Championship since 2014. But next up is Illinois-Chicago on senior day next Saturday as the Wolverines will meet the Flames for the final time as UIC is shutting down its program, sadly shrinking the sport of men's gymnastics to just 14 teams. 

MGoBoard

LBSS

March 24th, 2019 at 4:23 AM ^

Seriously. It'd be cool to see some version of these as main page write-ups, at least when something significant happens. I love the men's lacrosse coverage by L'Carpetron Doolittle, as well, TheTeam...21's thing on the B1G wrestling tournament as a diary. All good stuff. 

Joined: 11/21/2009

MGoPoints: 9642

Kewaga.

March 24th, 2019 at 11:08 AM ^

THIS!!

 

Seriously there are VERY few schools nationally that excel at BOTH the revenue and and non-revenue/Olympic sports!

We should be celebrating ALL of UofM accomplishments, even if just for major events from the non-revenue sports like LBSS mentioned.

Stanford, Florida, UCLA, Michigan, North Carolina,Texas are the 6 team that have ranked in the top 10 of the Directors Cup standings 19 or more times out of 25 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACDA_Directors%27_Cup

Of those team which teams ALSO are perennial contenders in the revenue sports?

Perhaps Brian, etc. can just ask WD and all the other excellent contributors of posts if they're willing to have their posts transferred to the main pain (just add on a pix)

I for one, SINCERELY appreciate the time you all devote to keeping us up to date on ALL the championship caliber teams we have at this great institution!

 

GO BLUE!!

 

PS: Looks like another strong standing in the Directors Cup this year (knocks on wood three times).

https://s3.amazonaws.com/nacda.com/documents/2019/3/19/DIMar21Overall.pdf

 

Joined: 02/06/2015

MGoPoints: 6947

xgojim

March 24th, 2019 at 11:23 AM ^

Thanks for the link.  Nice to see M near the top in spite of the way football finished.  The basketball results for both mens and womens should help the next version, along with really every sport in which M participated this winter.  We have had a successful multi-sport season so far.  And spring sports look promising as well.  Go Blue!  It would sure be nice to finish ahead of the stinkin' Stanford crowd some day.

Joined: 11/03/2012

MGoPoints: 2325

xgojim

March 24th, 2019 at 11:16 AM ^

As proud as we are about any of our sports teams, we should be proud of our men's gym legacy and the fabulous athletes who have represented M over the years.  Many have gone on to Olympics fame, where the sport gets the spotlight that it deserves.  How great to get even more of a reward for a job well done! 

It is unbelievable that there are only 14 teams left in the entire USA.  Not sure what that is an indictment of, but you would think there would be 14 in California alone or on the East Coast.  Perhaps it is a result of over-emphasis on the revenue sports in high school.  Girls and womens gymnastics certainly seem very popular these days.  Obviously, M is leading the way for both mens and womens and the sport will return some day to where it should be.

Joined: 11/03/2012

MGoPoints: 2325