Getting ready to watch the Gymbacks vs. the Bagwomen tonight and decided to look up the national rankings at roadtonationals.com. The ranked teams are listed by name, ranking score and conference, Auburn is #8. We’re at #15, Arkansas, 195.450, SEC. Immediately above us is North Carolina, 195.700… EAGL?
So it turns out that the ACC, in addition to being afraid to expand the CFP, does not sponsor gymnastics. UNC, NC State and Pitt are ACC schools in the EAGL, which stands for East Atlantic Gymnastics League and includes 8 schools in all.
There are other gymnastics-only conferences out West, but the SEC, Pac-12, Big 12 and B1G all sponsor gymnastics. Only the ACC doesn’t among Power 5 conferences. Lacrosse, yes, men’s soccer, yes, field hockey, yes, fencing, yes. But not gymnastics.
Swine I guess you think its cute to always use nicknames instead of saying the name of other teams but many may not know your references and be confused. Granted I’m older than dirt and remember much of the dirty laundry and various things that your nicknames tend to reference, but not everyone is old as dirt like me. It would just be nice to actually say a name or two from time to time. Unless you have some real aversion to actually saying the names of those you are talking about.
You are free not to read any of my posts, and I am free to call anyone I want anything I want. Don’t like it? Not my problem. I generally don’t even call my son by his name.
By the way, if you paid attention I mentioned Auburn before I mentioned Arkansas.
Meanwhile our Cami Weaver landed her vault and her right knee bent backward. You will note that human knees are not built to bend backward. I would be very surprised if ACL reconstruction is not in her immediate future.
And Olympic champ Suni Lee showed why she got gold, nailing a 9.950 on the bars. Auburn leads after the first rotation.
Both teams did very well on third rotation (49.3 for UA, 49.325 for AU), Hogs lead 147.900 to 147.875. We finish on floor exercise, Auburn finishes on balance beam.
Needed a 9.925 from Bailey Lovett in the final floor routine to tie, 9.95 to win, Didn’t get either (9.875). But a great night. They had the gold medalist, we didn’t. They finished at 197.250, we finished at 197.200. Will definitely move up the national rankings with that score, as will Auburn.
Kennedy Hambrick won the all-around (Lee didn’t do the AA; she skipped bars).
Actually, she skipped vault, and did very well on bars. We didn’t do as well on floor as we normally do, but it was still a very good number. Really enjoyed watching. And quite honestly, Jeff, I can’t believe you missed Suni on bars. You are normally so diligent with your insights and insults. I actually agree with Votan…some of your nicknames need some sort of clarification for the casual reader. You used to be a sports writer, right? No need to be belligerent when someone asks you a simple question.
Flipped it over to watch the end of Utah-OU gymnastics on ESPN2. The Clips are #3 nationally, UU is #4. Not being a gymnastics expert by any means, but just comparing scores on similar performances, I thought the judges in Salt Lake City were much more lenient than the judges in BWA, OU hung up a 197.4 in its opener last week, but they were having some pretty significant bobbles that even I (and the lenient judges) could identify, and Utah pulled away to win fairly easily, with a 197.775, best score in the country so far according to the talking heads. OU finished with 196.650.
Which leads me to one of my decade-long rants: If you have to have judges tell you who won, it isn’t a sport, it’s an athletic competition. These girls are hellacious athletes, but waiting for the scores…
Well, I grew up competing in athletic competitions, horse shows. Then later I decided to continue by showing dogs (hey, the equipment is cheaper.) It’s normal to me.
That’s true. It’s quite a long list (and the Winter Olympics next month is full of them). Diving, figure skating, snowboarding, freestyle skiing… Boxing is saved only by the possibility of a knockout (not that I’m a big boxing fan anyway).
Two weeks in a row where judging the judges for their performance took away attention from outstanding performances by both teams. The Utah-OU judges you mentioned might have given a couple of 9.99 scores to performances from both teams. The scores are in the record now but it is difficult to see anything but a “winner”. Two 197.800’s would not be given much debate from the BWA crowd.
