In my quest to get people to realize that they can follow gymnastics outside of the Olympics, I come with another article on college gymnastics. More specifically, a preview of the NCAA gymnastics postseason, which is set to start next week.
The gymnastics postseason divides the top 36 teams into four regionals. The top 16 teams are seeded into regionals, and then the remaining teams are assigned based on geography. The teams ranked 28-36 need to compete in a first round “play-in” meet, while the other teams get a first round bye. The second round consists of two “quad meets” (meaning four teams competing). The winner of the play-ins qualifies into the second quad meet. The top two from each of the second round meets go into the regional final quad meet, and the top two from that meet qualify to national championships.
If you’re keeping up with the math, that means that within a week, the total field across all regionals will be narrowed from 36 to 28 gymnasts, then to 16 (the “Sweet Sixteen,”), and then to the “Elite Eight” teams that will make it to the National Championship in Fort Worth Texas. From there, the top eight will compete in two quad meets, and the top two from each will make it to “Four on the Floor.” At that meet, the National Champion will be decided.
It’s a lot to write down, but pretty easy to follow in practice. Regional qualification is set, and I’ll preview them all and give my own predictions.
Alabama Regional
Hosted by the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, this regional will open with a play-in meet between No. 27 Clemson (who had the unfortunate luck of competing in the play-ins despite being ranked above No. 28 due to geographic bad luck) and No. 34 Rutgers, who qualified to regionals for the first time since 2014. Ths winner will go on to compete against No. 3 Florida, No. 14 Oregon State, and No. 19 NC State. The other second round meet will consist of No. 6 California, the host team No. 11 Alabama, No. 22 North Carolina and No. 23 Iowa. Florida is the favorite to win this regional—the Gators have successfully surpassed the all-important 198 team score in regular season and own the highest uneven bars score in NCAA history. The battle for the second spot could be a close one. California is the reigning national runner-up, but to defend its title it will need to surpass Oregon State and its star Jade Carey—an Olympian and the best all-around college gymnast in the country, as well as a talented Alabama team that has a knack for peaking at the right time.
Pennsylvania Regional
This could be a regional that becomes absolute anarchy thanks to the way regionals seeding shook out and the proximity of host Penn State to numerous Big Ten powerhouses. No. 31 Maryland and No. 36 West Virginia will compete in the play-in round. West Virginia surprised everyone with just qualifying to regionals after a disastrous early start to the season. The winner will compete against No. 1 LSU, No. 16 Arkansas and No. 17 Michigan, while the other semifinal will be between No. 8 Michigan State, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 25 Ohio State and No. 28 Penn State (which gets the good luck of avoiding the play-in round despite its No. 28 ranking). These are shaping up to be close meets, but reigning National Champion LSU—which managed to regain the No. 1 spot ranking after defeating Oklahoma in the SEC Championships last week—is the most likely to qualify to nationals. The second spot is anyone’s guess. Michigan State and Kentucky are evenly matched, and Arkansas and Michigan could rise to the occasion and upset their way to nationals. This will likely be the most closely fought regional.
Utah Regional
Utah Gymnastics is a legendary program and they generally perform well on their home turf. Two other Utah schools, No. T-32 BYU and No. T-32 Utah State, will battle it out in the play-ins. As their rankings suggest, these teams could not be more evenly matched. The winner will face No. 4 Utah, as well as No. 13 Stanford, who has snagged a seeded regionals spot after a surprise nationals run last year, and No. 18 Denver, which has been having a slower season overall. The other regional semifinal will feature fan-favorite team No. 5 UCLA, which has been having a remarkable season, along with No. 12 Minnesota, No. 24 Southern Utah and No. 30 Boise State (another team that benefitted from geography to dodge the play-in). While Utah and UCLA are the favorites to advance out of this regional, Stanford has something of a tradition of upsetting top-ten teams in postseason meets. Denver also enters with something to prove after failing to secure a seeded spot to regionals. We’ll just have to wait and see how things shake out.
Washington Regional
There are a lot of things of note about this regional. Firstly, we have No. 35 UC Davis competing against No. 29 Illinois in the play-ins. UC Davis, like Rutgers, has qualified to regionals for the first time since 2014. Secondly, the winner of that play-in will compete in the semifinal against an absolute behemoth of the gymnastics world, the University of Oklahoma, currently ranked at No. 2. The Sooners have one six National Championships in the past ten years, they ranked at No. 1 for the entirety of the regular season, and they are as close to guaranteed as possible a spot at Nationals. Their semifinal will also include No. 15 Auburn (which seems to have finally put the pieces together in the post-Suni Lee era), and No. 20 Nebraska. The other semifinal will be between this season’s breakout star No. 7 Missouri, No. 10 Georgia, which is enjoying a remarkable comeback with new head coaches and a revamped roster, and in-state rivals No. 21 Arizona and No. 26 Arizona State. Missouri is the favorite to snag the second spot at nationals, but Georgia and Auburn aren’t far behind.
You might have noticed that the host team, the University of Washington, wasn’t included in that preview. That is because unfortunately, Washington failed to qualify a full team to regionals. However, they did qualify four individual gymnasts, which brings us to …
Individuals
Along with the teams, individual gymnasts compete at regionals. These are the top 12 all-arounders and top-16 individual event specialists on each event, who are not on a top 28 qualifying team. They are assigned to regionals based on geography. At the end of regionals, the individual on each event and the top all-arounder not on national-qualifying teams will advance to nationals. It is very hard for an individual at regionals to make nationals, but they’re still worth keeping an eye on.
And then, once regionals are over, there are the National Championships themselves. Assuming they qualify, LSU will be looking to defend its National Championship while Oklahoma will be looking for redemption from last year and regain its crown. However, teams like Florida, Utah, UCLA and Cal will certainly want to be in the mix, and you can never count out a surprise contender who upset at regionals. All in all, it’s set to be a fun month of gymnastics!
