The LSU Regional

Regional Draw

Schedule

April 1, 2:00pm CT – AF v Nebraska Play-in
April 2, 1:00pm CT – Semifinal #1
April 2, 7:00pm CT – Semifinal #2
April 4, 5:00pm CT – Final

What’s Her Story?

Even without being a regionals host, #2 LSU would join national top seed Oklahoma in the “Um, I guess, but things would have to get pretty funky” category of upset prognostication, which is only reinforced by LSU competing within friendly confines.

With regard to the rest of this regional, there are two types of people in this world: Those who think Stanford is going to toe point their way to a 199.999 and challenge LSU for the top score while advancing easily, and those who think this is secretly the most chaotic regional and every guest is a suspect.

For the first type, may I present Stanford’s February-March run of four scores of 197.625+ (three away) with a high of 198.150. For the second type, may I present conference championship Saturday, where Clemson recorded the second-best score among the schools in this regional with 197.100, a mark that has been reached by seven teams in this group—LSU, Stanford, Michigan, Clemson, Auburn, North Carolina, and (!) Air Force.

What both types can agree on is Stanford’s vault. Vault is the beam of this regional. If Stanford vaults a good one, like at the meet against Oregon State, advancing to nationals should be merely a matter of staying on the remaining apparatuses. If Stanford goes 48.800 on vault like at ACCs, then a team like Michigan or Clemson can realistically gain a fall advantage on that one apparatus, and then this is a free-for-all.

What’s Her Semifinal Story?

Rotation Order

For most of these afternoon semifinals, there is a sufficient gap between the favored two seeds and the underdog two seeds to expect everything to go as ranked, unless we decide to invite a counting fall to the party. This should be no exception, but it does have one unusual feature. North Carolina is the #1-ranked team in this semifinal on vault, the only unseeded team in any regional this year to be ranked #1 on any apparatus in its semifinal.

It’s cause for pause, and we have seen North Carolina get scores this season that would challenge Michigan’s recent level. That 196.800 Michigan scored at Big Tens, with Stanford’s ACC score only a few tenths higher, is not a crazy ask. Still, the seven-tenth(+) advantage in NQS that Stanford and Michigan own tells us this semifinal has clear, expected favorites.

Item #1: Maybe let’s all stop being Tigers. There are other concepts in the world besides Tiger. That is the most important thing about this semifinal.

The second most important thing (a distant second) is that this could be the most exciting semifinal across all the regionals if Auburn shows up—and shows up in a single piece. Or close enough to it. A real hit for both Clemson’s and Auburn’s current lineups should end up being almost identical, but while Clemson has been a model of predictability this season with very little deviation in scores and very few occasions of counting a half-miss, Auburn’s meets have been just so weird. It’s been a whole season of half-misses.

A full disaster rotation like Auburn had on beam at SECs (en route to a season low 195.300) has actually been pretty rare, but much more common has been a day of three 9.6s on bars, or the entire lineup seeing the same tarantula under the beam for 9.7s. That’s not going to cut it in a regional semifinal, but everyone’s sane, normal hit should theoretically be very competitive against Clemson’s typical meet.

Individual Qualification

For those who do not make nationals with a team, one AAer and one gymnast on each apparatus also advance.

All-Around

The national rankings for the all-arounders in the LSU regional

This regional features two of the top five AAers in the country (and two of the three AAers who have scored a season-leading 39.875), but if LSU and Stanford do end up qualifying as teams, this regional presents an excellent opportunity for Air Force’s Maggie Slife to qualify to nationals.

Event Top 10s

Projecting individual event qualifiers to nationals is notoriously impossible, so here we go with the top 10 ranked gymnasts in the regional on each event.

VAULT

If we bypass the Kailin Chio/Anna Roberts dominance duo, Jojo Valahovic of North Carolina is the top-ranked unseeded vaulter in this regional, with Auburn’s Paige Zancan also in contention to win one for the concept of doing something slightly different.

BARS

Like the Kentucky regional, the LSU regional also presents a great opportunity for a bars individual from a lower-ranked team to qualify, with Slife ranked 2nd on bars in this regional and Towson’s Isabella Minervini just behind her.

BEAM

If Michigan doesn’t advance as a team, beam provides an excellent opportunity for an individual qualifier. When Kayli Boozer doesn’t wobble, there’s nothing else to take.

FLOOR

Half of the national top 10 on floor find themselves in this regional, with Brie Clark and Sydney Seabrooks both in with excellent chances. If Clark qualifies to nationals, will it finally be Biles I time?

Team Score Trackers

Each gymnast from the conference championship lineup is listed with her NQS on that apparatus (or average if she doesn’t have an NQS), followed by what the 5-count total for the event would be using these scores.

Because the individual NQS system still uses the old method of dropping all the bad ones, these totals are very much better-case-scenario scores. What does it look like if everyone is a perfect princess who has never done anything wrong all at the exact same time?

Semifinal #1

Semifinal #2