The Alabama gymnastics team is going to coach Dana Duckworth’s home state next.
On Monday, the NCAA Selection Show revealed the Crimson Tide has been placed at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, regional for April 4-6. Nine teams are going to be there. Alabama is the No. 3 seed and will start competition in Round 2 since the first day is dedicated to a play-in meet between the bottom two seeds.
“I’m very excited,” UA junior Maddie Desch said. “I don’t think you could really be set up better. But I also think we would’ve taken on any challenge.”
Total, 36 teams will compete in four regionals across the country. The top 16 teams were seeded based on rankings, which are determined by their National Qualifying Score. The bottom 16 seeds were seeded geographically.
The Crimson Tide’s regional seeding looks like this: No. 2 UCLA (198.01), No. 7 Michigan (197.32), No. 10 Alabama (196.99), No. 14 Nebraska (196.65), Penn State (196.07), Ohio State (195.99), West Virginia (195.845), Illinois (195.805) and Central Michigan (195.735) in order.
“This is a strong regional,” Duckworth said. “I think it’s going to be a competitive regional, and we’re going to do our job.”
Round 2 will feature two quad meets. Alabama has been slotted for the afternoon session with Michigan, Penn State and the Ohio State. Leaving the other four teams – remember, one of the nine will be sent home during Round 1 – for the evening session.
That shocked Duckworth.
“I thought every host institution would be guaranteed the evening session,” she said. “I knew we would match up with Michigan, so I thought we’d be in the evening session. What it looks like is they took every top-seeded team, no matter what regional they went to, and they put them in the evening session, which in my mind makes sense because they think the higher-ranked teams are going to bring more audiences.”
Alabama will start on the balance beam and end on the uneven bars. The Crimson Tide ranks No. 11 on beam (49.27) and No. 15 on bars (49.235). It is then No. 7 on the floor exercise (49.41) and No. 9 on the vault (49.235).
Looking at its first meet alone, the Crimson Tide is better than the Buckeyes and the Nittany Lions on every event. But the Wolverines are stronger on vault (No. 6, 49.305), beam (No. 6, 49.385) and bars (No. 10, 49.355). They are then No. 8 (49.385) on floor.
The top two teams out of each portion of Round 2 advance to Round 3’s sole quad meet. From there, only the first and second place move on to the 2019 NCAA Championships on April 19-20 in Fort Worth, Texas.
“I’m super excited and anxious,” Alabama sophomore Lexi Graber said. “It’s going to be very interesting to how everything turns out with everybody being on the same playing field, same judges and everything. It’s going to be a good one.”
Reach Terrin Waack at twaack@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0229.
