Snap Preview OU at MI

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Event by event rundown of Oklahoma at Michigan

Ranking sorted in order of highest total overall score, then highest total D score.

Home scores are in red.

For entertainment purposes only. Do not bet money, because I don’t know what the lineups will be on the day.

Floor Exercise

Oklahoma has the advantage here (led by Emre Dodanli), having scored higher than Michigan in all but one of its meets, and consistently demonstrating higher difficulty. The meet at which Michigan competed had a similar level of difficulty as Oklahoma (around a total D score of 27), they scored lower than Oklahoma has all season.

Pommel Horse

Oklahoma has the advantage on pommel horse, partly because of potential big scores from Igancio Yockers, A lot depends on if Michigan answers back with Paul Juda and/or Fred Richard.

Still Rings

Oklahoma could have the lead coming into still rings, but this is where Michigan (led by Javier Alfonso) could start to close any existing gap.

Vault

Oklahoma has a very slight advantage, but Michigan has some very good vaulters (Paul Juda, David Wolma, Landon Blixt, Fred Richard).

Parallel Bars

Michigan is ranked #1 in the nation on parallel bars, and Oklahoma is ranked 3rd. Slight advantage - Michigan.

High Bar

Oklahoma has a clear advantage on paper. They are ranked first in the nation, with 3 gymnasts (Kelton Christiansen, Jack Freeman, and Emre Dodanli ranked in the top 10. Michigan does have the triple high bar threat of Bold, Juda, and Richard.

Team

Too close to call. A lot will depend on the lineups each team chooses to put up.

Some of the lower Michigan scores are from meets where Fred Richard and Paul Juda were either not competing or competing watered down routines. Fred Richard skipped Winter Cup and Paul Juda withdrew, so it’s unclear how much they will be able to contribute.

Oklahoma will be without Colin Flores, who suffered a season ending ACL tear at Winter Cup. Fuzzy Benas may be rested on some events (just having competed 2 days of AA at Winter Cup).

Some of the bigger Oklahoma advantages come on pommel horse and high bar, where a lot can go wrong.

Michigan will have home gym advantage. Home field advantage exists in every sport, even the ones sportsball fans love to claim are “totally objective” compared to gymnastics. To quote the article “The largest impact on home-team wins, according to Moskowitz and Wertheim, comes from a more insidious source: referee bias. They document cases of official bias, predominantly at “very crucial” points during the game, in baseball, American football, basketball, and ice hockey.”

Not trying to pick on MIchigan here, as it’s a factor for all teams. “Home Cooking” gets talked about all the time, so I thought I’d provide the information from people who actually studied the issue.