The gymnastics team with back to back impressive performances have put themselves on track for another trip to the NCAA with about half the season to go. The 36 bids to the NCAA are purely score based. Your score is determined by the average of your top 6 meets (at least 3 of which must be away meets) dropping the best score. The best 36 qualifying scores will put you in to the tournament.
The format last year changed significantly, creating more "rounds" of the tournament, which makes it more fun that the old format that was 6 teams in a region, the top 2 advance. Now we have more of a march madness style bracket:
At Regional site (9 teams per region):
1st Round: 8/9 seeds go head to head on a Friday night
2nd Round: two quad meets with the top 2 in each quad advancing to the sweet 16
Sweet 16: 4 remaining teams in a quad meet with the top 2 advancing to nationals
At Nationals site:
Elite 8: two 4 team quad meets with the top 2 advancing
Final 4: one quad meet, best team wins.
So all that said, the goal would be to be one of the top 16 in the country because they seed those slots (17-36 get placed geographically). Also, top 16 is in theory favored to make the sweet 16, with a shot to go for nationals. A more realistic goal for the Wolfpack is to slide into that 17-28 ranking. That puts you directly into the second round without having to do the Friday night play in. Keep in mind that last year NC State was in the friday night dual, and won it to advance to the 2nd round, where they took 3rd of 4 teams.
Right now NC State sits at #27 nationally, but that score is based on a pure average, because teams haven't had enough meets to make a qualifying score. That ranking based on qualifying score will probably come out next week.
Ok, if you read this far, this is now NC State's scores to this point:
Home 1: 196.250 (would drop)
Home 2: 195.650
Home 3: TBD
Away 1: 196.025
Away 2: 194.425
Away 3: 193.800
Regional Qualifying Score: TBD
Remaining: 3 home meets, 4 away
I'd say that we have 3 scores already in the bank that are NCAA worthy out of 5 meets, so that's excellent. With two more home meets coming up, it's a chance to really lock in some high scores. Then we need to hit on at least 2 of the remaining 4 road meets. Next week I'll just update the scores.