The Arizona State Regional

Regional Draw

Schedule

April 1, 2:00pm PT – ASU v Arizona Play-in
April 2, 1:00pm PT – Semifinal #1
April 2, 7:00pm PT – Semifinal #2
April 4, 5:00pm PT – Final

*the customary note that Arizona doesn’t do daylight saving and is on Pacific time now

What’s Her Story?

Are the preseason vibes to be trusted? We shall find out. When we got started a few months ago, it was all “Florida has the most stacked roster, everyone is ‘lympics!” and “Real Georgia is bacccckkkk” on one side, and on the other side, it was all “everyone is gone and my dreams are dead” at Cal, and “some of the people are gone and my dreams are dead” at Michigan State.

In the intervening period, things evened out more than that. Michigan State and Cal both withstood influential departures better than it initially seemed, while Florida had a period of Mysterious Vault Cuckoos and Georgia had a period of Mysterious Beam Cuckoos that dipped their ascents and gave reason to question whether both teams were actually as face-glitter as advertised.

The SEC Championship seemed to signal a return to early-season vibe status. Florida won the championship by suddenly evolving into a team that goes to pieces the least when it really matters, while Georgia cruised to victory in the JV session. Michigan State didn’t exactly fall back into line though. MSU’s last two scores have been 197.500 and 197.475, and Georgia’s have been 197.525 and 197.450. We’ve got some “that’s the same” on our hands.

What’s Her Semifinal Story?

Rotation Order

Of all the national semifinals, this one has the biggest NQS gap between the two seeded teams and the two unseeded teams. Second-ranked Michigan State is nearly 9 tenths ahead of third-ranked BYU, which starts to get into the territory of being able to count a fall and still win. It looks the least likely to produce an upset. Which means it definitely will.

We have seen BYU go on a stick parade this season on beam to get 49.550 in an upset victory over Clemson, and a performance like that would dramatically reduce the level of seeded-team-mistake required to make a meet of this.

Penn State has enjoyed a sleeper-good year, recording the team’s best total since Sharaya Musser Times and spending a memorable 13 seconds in the national top 16. On balance, they’ve been about one Tonya Paulsson, one 10.0 vault short of Cal week-to-week, but if Penn State can pull out a solid beam meet, there shouldn’t be too many tenths in this one. A couple short landings and an OOB would be enough to invert the rankings if everyone’s hitting.

Beam is the one event on which Penn State outranks Cal, but they had the nervy shakes at Big Tens and suddenly ended up with a season-low 196.000, while Cal went to ACCs for an “all 9.850s, all the time” and a near 197, the kind of performance that most likely should advance here.

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 Arizona State regional

This is a very light regional on ranked AAers. In practice, there should be more of them. Florida is going to compete with more than just Harris-Miranda (though if they qualify as a team as expected, it won’t be relevant), and Elizabeth Leary should do the AA for Penn State. Still, there are definite opportunities. Nikki Smith looks like the favorite if Michigan State doesn’t go as a team, but watch out for Tonya Paulsson if she gets enough out of vault.

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

Sage Kellerman and whatnot. With both Kellerman and Piedrahita here, this regional is a win for vaulting in the piked position.

BARS

This is the bars regional. (Ja’Free Scott, Kelise Woolford, and Dani Latronica are all 9.9 NQSs who aren’t even in the top 10.) When you take out Florida’s whole lineup, though, it does clarify bars as an excellent opportunity for Tonya Paulsson to qualify.

BEAM

Beam in this regional feels very ripe for an out-of-left-field qualifier.

FLOOR

Arizona’s Emma Strom has been out the last couple meets, which may hinder hopes for an underdog qualifier here. You’d probably bet on Michigan State to get a floor qualifier if team doesn’t happen.

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