Headed to the NCAA's six teams won their regionals and will be the top six seeds. Oklahoma, LSU, Florida, Utah, UCLA and Michigan. There were some interesting developments during the regional day. Each regional has the top 18 seeds in the country, spread around six predetermines sites. It's not like women's softball, where the top seeds get to host regionals, and supers, or basketball where the top seeds get to host the first weekend's two games.
When I went to my first gymnastics meet for the Big XII championships in Denton two weeks ago, I talked to a young woman who was a gymnastics nerd. She knew a lot off the top of her head. One thing she told me, was that the SEC is known for awarding high scores, when they face each other, in duals or the conference championship. It helps in regional seeding.
That was reflected in today's regional results. The really critical matchup in these things is six and seven nationally. They went head to head today, and will again in the finals in two weeks. The way it works is a first day with all twelve teams competing. The top six on Friday then go to the Super Six on Saturday, and only those six compete for the national title, with no Friday scores counting in that. They start over from scratch.
So sixth gets to compete and seventh goes home. In today's regionals, No 6 Alabama and No. 7 Michigan were in the regional at Morgantown. Number seven beat number 6. Michigan won that regional 197.350 to 196.625 which is a pretty significant margin. In fact, host West Virginia at 196.325, was closer to Alabama that Bama was to Michigan. West Virginia was ranked 23, 17 spots behind Bama. It's a bit alarming to me, how much home cooking scoring happens in these regionals.
That was shown where it counted the most. The top 12 teams go to nationals. Both Washington ranked 13th and Nebraska ranked 14th, got to host regional events. Both advanced over teams ranked 11 and 12 who went home, Boise and Kentucky. Okay one is the SEC and the other Boise, so not many crying about that, outside of those locations.
Arkansas also got to host a regional, won by number 4 Utah. But Denver, who is a Big XII gymnastics member finished second, to advance to St. Louis in two weeks. Going home from that regional were the SEC's Arkansas and Auburn, who tied each other for third. .450 behind Denver.
Oregon State finished second behind UCLA at U of Illinois.
So the twelve teams advancing are
OU
LSU
Florida
Utah
UCLA and
Michigan as top six seeds. And
Bama
Oregon State
Denver
Georgia
Nebraska and
Washington as those 7-12.
So four Pac 12 schools, four SEC schools, two Big XII schools, and two Big Ten schools. That's a little more balance than the lopsided dominance by the SEC we've seen in the past, especially since the SEC only has two in the top six at this point.
And LSU's score was down a bit from recent SEC competitions. They were a little over 197.6 with perhaps some tougher scoring in Lincoln, Nebraska. Or maybe they felt pretty confident about advancing easily and are more focused on the finals.
OU's performance today has some worth noting parts. They scored over 198 as a team in the challenging regional, 2000 miles from home. OU has been over 198 five times this season, all when Nichols competed in all four events. Only two other schools have scored over 198 this year, LSU and UCLA and both have done it once. The Sooners had a great performance on vault, which has occasionally been a bit of an up and down event.
They're still searching for the sixth competitor on the floor. Getting Maggie Nichols back really helps with the team scoring. Her knee just needs to hold up through two more rotations.
This national championship is OU's for the taking. I believe if they win, it would be the first undefeated season in school history.
