Looks like NC State finished 3rd behind New Hampshire and George Washington

Wolfer79 said:

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Looks like NC State finished 3rd behind New Hampshire and George Washington

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Ok, admittedly this is the first time that I have looked at the Gymnastics NCAA set up this year, and it is different than what they have had since I've been paying attention for the last 20+ years. There are still 36 teams, but only 4 regional sites. That's 9 per site.

On top of that, the entire set up is different. Let's see if I'm interpreting this correctly. Even though they will only seed the top 4 teams in each region, pretend that they seed all 9 teams. The 8 and 9 seeds will match up in a "play-in" game for lack of a better term. The winner of that two team meet on Thursday April 4th, will advance to the next round. An 8 team meet on Friday, April 5th. That meet will advance the top 4 teams to a regional final on April 6th. That final will produce a top 2 that will advance to nationals.

So nationals will only have 8 teams, and they will do the semifinals, 8 teams to get down to 4, and then the finals with 4 teams. (in years past, it was 12 to get down to 6, and 6 teams were in the finals)

So what does that mean for NC State. Well, in a long term look, it has become infinitely harder to advance to nationals. Instead of 12 teams, there are only 8. Secondly, a Pack team that's not top 16, would have to pull an upset in the regional semifinals, just to get to the regional finals, and then do it again in the regional finals. In my opinion this narrows the field of college gymnastics even more so to the haves, instead of the have nots.


But all that said, let's look at this year's team. I knew were were comfortably in the field, but didn't know this set up so I wasn't really paying attention to the exact rank (I figured top 36 and we are good). Well we sit at #31 right now. Which would translate to a regional "8 seed". Now, the question is, will they hold the seed line all the way down to 8/9, or will regional location come into play. Since there is a huge advantage to be a 7 seed over an 8 or 9 seed, I would think the committee would hold on to the rankings. But we know NCAA Committees are not geniuses so we will see.

Assuming they follow rankings, expect us to be an 8 seed in the Athens, Georgia regional, and have to play in a play in meet on Thursday night against, let's guess #35 George Washington. If we win that head to head meet, then we will compete again on Friday night with 7 other teams in the Athens region trying to be top 4. We will see how this plays out in the selection show tonight at 5 PM.

The Pack will face No. 34 New Hampshire in the first round, with the winner advancing to the second round of the regional

Also appearing in the regional will be No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 8 Georgia, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 16 California, No. 19 Missouri, No. 22 Iowa State, and No. 28 Maryland

I was pretty close. I predicted the 8 seed in the Athens region, but I had us against GW instead of New Hampshire.

A couple of interesting notes. Seeds 1-12 were exactly based on Qualifying scores, but seeds 13-16 were slightly jumbled so that Oregon State could host as the 13 seed. They moved up from 15 to 13, Auburn and Nebraska moved back one spot each.

Also of note to us this year, and possibly in the future. The 8/9 seeds were strictly the last 8 teams in the field, but they were definitely grouped regionally instead of by seed here are the ranked matchups in the first round:
#29 Illinois vs #30 Central Michigan
#31 NC State vs #34 New Hampshire
#32 Iowa vs #33 Arizona
#35 George Washington vs #36 Lindenwood

Illinois and CMU got hosed, and GW and Lindenwood caught a break. A true S curve would have swapped Lindenwood and Central Michigan. I feel like for competitive purposes, that should have done that, instead of making sure CMU and Illinios were in the Michigan region for geography purposes, and GW and Lindenwood (who is from Missouri) got shipped to LSU.

Lastly, just to get a feel for how they were grouped, here are the regions specifically by ranking:

Athens: (true S curve would be: 1-8-9-16-17-24-25-32-33)
#1 Oklahoma
#8 Georgia
#9 Kentucky
#16 Cal
#19 Missouri
#22 Iowa State
#28 Maryland
#31 NC State
#34 New Hampshire

Ann Arbor: (true S curve would be: 2-7-10-15-18-23-26-31-34)
#2 UCLA
#7 Michigan
#10 Alabama
#14 Nebraska (note given #15 seed)
#23 Penn State
#26 Ohio State
#27 West Virginia
#29 Illinois
#30 Central Michigan

Baton Rouge: (true S curve would be: 3-6-11-14-19-22-27-30-35)
#3 LSU
#6 Utah
#11 Minnesota
#13 Auburn (note given the #14 seed)
#17 BYU
#20 Arkansas
#21 Arizona State
#35 George Washington
#36 Lindenwood

Corvallis: (true S curve would be: 4-5-12-13-20-21-28-29-36)
#4 Florida
#5 Denver
#12 Boise State
#15 Oregon State (note given the #13 seed)
#18 Washington
#24 Southern Utah
#25 Stanford
#32 Iowa
#33 Arizona


Overall, we got the true matchup we should get in the first round #34 New Hampshire. And as far as advancing to the regional final (top 4 in Athens), we got the worst 4 seed in Cal, and the second worst 5 seed in Missouri, and the worst 7 seed in Maryland. We'd have to beat New Hampshire, who just beat us in the conference championship, and then we'd have to climb over 4 teams, but the the right day, and other teams struggling, it's in the realm of possibility that we advance to the "sweet 16". Perhaps competing on the first day gives us an advantage over the teams that come in cold. We will see how it all plays out.

Since this year's set up is different, let me boil it down a bit. The Wolfpack could potentially compete 5 times on the road to the national championship. Three times in Athens, GA, two times at the national finals in Fort Worth, TX.

Round 1 - Athens, GA - Thursday (4/4) A head to head match up with New Hampshire. Winner advances to round 2 (which will include the top 32 teams in the nation)
Round 2 - Athens, GA - Friday (4/5) - A 4 team meet, with the top 2 advancing to round 3 (which now boils us down to Sweet 16)
Round 3 - Athens, GA - Saturday (4/6) - Those 4 teams competing with the top 2 advancing to nationals (getting us down to 8)

Round 4 - Fort Worth, TX (Friday (4/19) - Top 2 from Athens regional and top 2 from Corvallis regional will compete in 4 team semifinal, top 2 advance.
Round 5 - Fort Worth, TX (Saturday 4/20) - Top 2 from semifinal meet top 2 from other semifinal in a 4 team national championship.

Another update to the format (at least for me, I'm learning as we go here). A win on Thursday in the dual meet over New Hampshire advances NC State to a four team meet in round 2. The round 2 meets in Athens are separate competitions, so if you have a really good score but finish in third place you don't advance, even if your score is better than all four teams in the other Athens Round 2 meet.

Honestly, this is good news for NC State. Especially since our quad is the 1-16 quad. We would go against #1 Oklahoma, #16 Cal, and #28 Maryland.

If we are able to beat Cal and Maryland, we advance to the sweet 16. That's the best possible scenario for us, as we got the lowest protected seed in our quad (Cal), and I'm not sure how Maryland got in our group too, but they are the 7th ranked team in the Athens region. Seems like it should have been #19 Missouri, but who am I to question.

Step 1 is beating New Hampshire on Thursday, and even though we have the higher ranking, they have beaten us twice head to head this year.

Congrats on the round 1 victory, ladies!

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