Innocent Gymnasts Versus The Beam Troll

As is only traditional, let's begin at the start. The first of the two semifinals will take place in the void between the dimensions on April 15th at 2:00 ET/11:00 PT and should be a doozy. An argument can be made for five of these six teams advancing without having to concoct very many insane circumstances at all (sorry, Minnesota, but it would take a splatfest from the others). The big five should all expect to score into the 197s and will be disappointed by anything less than that. To some extent, we're in the dark about how scoring will play out in the semifinals because we're entering a whole new era. Starting this year, six judges will work each event beginning with the semifinals. Will that depress the scores, Possibly. That's two more whole people who have to be slipped a roll of cash under the bathroom door, which is a lot of work. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. This was instituted in an attempt to prevent a heap of ties for event winners now that those titles will be decided on Friday as well, and in case you're wondering, it's terrible.

Closer to nationals, I'll do a Super Six preview, which is ludicrous to do before we know who has qualified to Super Six but when has this blog ever been unludicrous, I'll save a more detailed discussion of Florida and LSU and how they match up against the other title contenders for that preview since they should both be in the mix. Of course, there's still the semifinal to get through, and counting a fall could ruin the year for any team at this point, but these two are the clear favorites to emerge from this semifinal. If either doesn't make it, it's an upset. For the rest of the teams in this group, it isn't. Florida looked distinctly meh at regionals, and while that's a near-annual tradition that shouldn't necessarily indicate anything real, the score was a far-from-peak 196.725. I'm not expecting a 196.725 to make Super Six. LSU did not have the same issues as Florida at regionals, comfortably breaking 197 and sliding through to qualification without a question.

Very reassuring. Except nothing is reassuring ever. Still, this is prognostication about the likelihood of counting falls, which is a fool's game, but that's what it would take to knock Florida or LSU out of this. Based on the quality of the gymnastics we've seen this season, both of these teams should be in the hit-and-advance category. Elimination with a hit meet would be a massive shock. Basically, I could copy-and-paste the "Auburn v. Michigan v. Stanford" section from the regional previews here and just replace the word Michigan with Georgia. It would be upsettingly accurate and appropriate, hearkening back to some of my frustrations with the repetitiveness of the current postseason assignments. We more or less just did this, and if everything goes to plan, it will be these three teams facing off against each other, only now it's a fight for one spot instead of two. The comparison is particularly congruent because Michigan was thwarted by the beam at regionals, and Georgia is Georgia. Just swap one for the other. As I said then, I still consider Stanford the challenger of the group rather than a likely qualifier because of those weaknesses on vault and floor.

Everything worked out at regionals because bars and beam came through as they were supposed to and the other teams had errors, but at some point relying on just two events won't be enough. Still, if Stanford's first-place tie at regionals taught us anything, it's that this is more than possible. Georgia misses beam, Auburn repeats its uninspiring regionals performance, and hello Stanford once again. Auburn had a slow start to the year, with some untimely injuries and lost magical routines that needed replacing, but ultimately showed far fewer low points than either Stanford or Georgia. That's why Auburn ranks the best of the group on three of the four events, and maintaining that commitment to fewer lows is Auburn's path to qualification here. If I were to name the most talented of these three teams on each event, I would give vault and floor to Georgia and bars and beam to Stanford.