The No. 21 Arizona GymCats won more Big 12 meets than anyone except top-seeded Utah, but they will be the No. 3 seed in the conference championships this week.
The Big 12 uses National Qualifying Scores (NQS) to seed the teams for the meet rather than conference records. In essence, winning meets makes no difference whatsoever. This hurt Arizona when Denver earned higher scores later in the season after the GymCats beat the Pioneers head-to-head earlier in the year.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing for UA, though. Moving down to third means they will start the meet on balance beam. That should help the GymCats get off on the right foot. They are ranked 20th in the country on beam. It’s their highest-ranked event.
Arizona will then move to floor exercise, where the group put up one of the best scores in program history last week against Utah State. Their weakest event will be next when they go to vault, but they finish on bars, which is their second-best event this season.
Arizona is ranked 20th through 29th in the four events. The team comes in at 24th on bars, 28th on floor, and 29th on vault.
Just getting to the evening session of the conference tournament is a huge boost for the GymCats. They had consistently been relegated to the early session the past several seasons. While it shouldn’t technically be the case, scores tend to rise as the day progresses. Going later puts both the team and individual gymnasts in better positions for high scores that help with conference titles and regional placement.
Arizona will compete with No. 4 Utah, No. 18 Denver, and No. 24 Arizona State in the late session. The GymCats defeated both Denver and ASU this season, but their scores have not risen as much as they might have liked as the season progressed.
The early session will include No. 33 BYU, No. 34 West Virginia, and No. 37 Iowa State. ISU is fighting to be in the top 36 to qualify for regionals. The Cyclones are currently 0.005 behind Central Michigan for the final qualifying spot.
The evening session begins at 4 p.m. MST at the Maverik Center in West Valley City, Utah on Saturday, March 22. The early session starts at 11 a.m. MST. Both sessions will stream on ESPN+.
Lead photo by Catherine Regan / Arizona Athletics