Ohio State coach Miles Avery predicted that the three favorites for the national championships next weekend at Rec Hall would be Ohio State, Oklahoma, and the Penn State men's gymnastics team.
"Those three teams have really separated themselves," he said.
Was it any surprise then when the seeds were announced for the national championships, who the top seeds would be?
The defending Big Ten Champ Buckeyes took the No. 1 seed when they were officially announced Wednesday. Two-time defending champion Oklahoma took the No. 2, while the Nittany Lions will try to win their record 12th national championship as the No.3 seed.
The schedules for next weekend were released as well. The qualifiers will take place on Thursday, April 12 in two sessions. The first session, at 1 p.m., will feature Army, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, and Stanford. The Lions will be featured in the second session at 7, along with California, Minnesota, Temple, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. The top three qualifiers from each session will advance to the finals Friday night.
The NCAA also released the names of the gymnasts competing in the Individual Finals on Saturday, April 14th. Six different schools will be featured in the individual finals, but the Lions won't be one of them. Instead, the finals will be dominated by Air Force, Navy, William and Mary, and Illinois-Chicago. Those four schools will account for 39 of the 42 gymnasts competing in the individual finals. The other three gymnasts will come from James Madison and MIT.
One advantage for Penn State and Ohio State will be that the remainder of the field is made up of familiar opponents. The Big Ten again showed why they might be the premier men's gymnastics conference in the nation. The other four teams in the Big Ten also made the field, with Michigan as the No. 5, Minnesota as the No. 6, Illinois as the No. 8, and Iowa as the No. 9 seeds.
The Pac-10 will send two schools to the tournament: Stanford as the No. 4 seed, and California as No. 7.
Temple will be the No. 10 seed, Nebraska will be the No.11 seed, and Army was the last team in and will be the No.12 seed.
Nebraska, California, and Oklahoma were the only teams Penn State didn't face off with this season, while the Buckeyes haven't seen Stanford, Army, or Nebraska.
Penn State will be trying to bounce back from their disappointing second place finish at the Big Tens, but despite the performance and the strong field, Penn State coach Randy Jepson continues to keep everything in front of him and to only worry about his guys.
"No," he said. "I'm only worried about Penn State."
