I respectfully reply here: nope.
I'm a very committed gymnastics fan, and I've watched this team all season - every single meet save Arkansas, which wasn't broadcast (and I wasn't going to Fayetteville to see). Friday was a "big stage" night and they absolutely killed it on beam, plus had extremely good scores on floor and bars as they have all season. On Saturday, they outscored themselves on vault (one of their best team vault scores all year), and were not as crisp on bars and floor (49.425 on each apparatus; anyone will tell you a team scoring 49.4 on each event is a championship-caliber team). Unfortunately, after Amelia Hundley's respectable 9.775 on beam (a little low for her; s/b around 9.8 - 9.85), Rachel Gowey and Alicia Boren both fell off the beam, so UF had to count a score. Once that happened, the pressure was ratcheted up big-time on the remaining beam performers to not stumble. They didn't, but the pressure led to lower scores all around, so right out of the gate, UF was 1.5 points behind their normal "pace" for a meet. Throughout the season, she's done all the right things: such as resting gymnasts here and there during the season to avoid injury or wearing them out (Elite and Level 10 gymnasts only compete 4 or 5 times a year; NCAA gymnasts compete in 9-15 meets in a season less than four months long). Two of the three assistants (Adrian Burde and Jeremy Miranda) were here with Faehn, only Owen Field is new. There is nothing that happened on Saturday that was on account of a lack of training, discipline, or proper encouragement from the training staff. This team has been stronger than any Faehn team I can recall on beam, which is the least forgiving of the apparatus. Some times the athletes can't execute. It just happens.
Just a reminder; even Rhonda Faehn missed the Super Six in 2011 with an exceptionally talented team. The next year, that team lost to Alabama in the finals just by a hair before going on to three back-to-back national championships.
Another thing of note: this is the first year with a new format; if this had been the old format, nobody would be groaning that UF missed nationals, as they would have qualified to go to Dallas and compete to be included in the Super Six (final).
On Sun, Apr 7, 2019 at 2:55 PM Charlie <ces1948@gmail.com> wrote:
--Gymnastics seems to be slipping a bit under Rowland. The ladies don't seem to do as well on the big stage.Charlie
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GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY!
1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007)
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GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY!
1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007)
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