Men’s NCAA Gymnastics 2026 Conference Championships - The big Picture
By Dall-E. Michigan is giving the Stanford gymnast the side eye because the Stanford guy looks like he might have three legs.
Where I pit myself against ChatGPT in guessing the winners. Both of us looked at all the season’s scores for every team competition. I know things the computer doesn’t, namely lineups vary throughout the season, and some teams don’t compete full lineups until the postseason.
Three storylines are going on - Michigan dominance, the Oklahoma Stanford duel between difficulty and execution, and ECAC, where any of three fairly evenly matched teams could take it.
B1G
Friday, April 3rd @ Nebraska 7PM CDT. Where to watch and live stats at B1G Championship Central.
Using all scores over the whole season. Teams may come into the meet with higher than their average D score.
Human picks - Michigan, Nebraska, some other team, probably Ohio State. I’m not writing any of them off.
Computer picks - Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State
This competition is the clearest cut of the three. Michigan has the greatest average difficulty and can hit their routines. Their biggest challenger, Nebraska, will probably be three to four points behind in difficulty. That is not insurmountable, but for Nebraska to win it, Michigan will have to make some errors. The most likely path to a Nebraska win is errors from Michigan on PH and HB, and Nebraska crushing VT and PB.
Michigan also has a good chance to take the AA title with Fred Richard.
Illinois is a question mark. They can put up as much difficulty as Nebraska, and they can be right in there if they hit. The Illini have routines with world-class difficulty (Brandon Dang on PH, Samuel Phillips on HB). Injuries and bad luck have also plagued them.
Between Ohio State and Penn State, it will be whoever hits on the day.
MPSF
Saturday, April 4th @ Cal Berkely 4 PM PDT. Where to watch and live stats at MPSF meet Hub
Using all scores over the whole season. Teams may come into the meet with higher than their average D score.
Human picks - Oklahoma, Stanford, California
Computer picks - Oklahoma, Stanford, California
This meet showcases the heart of gymnastics strategy - the tradeoff between difficulty and execution.
In the execution corner, we have Oklahoma, and in the difficulty corner, we have Stanford. Oklahoma isn’t so far behind Stanford that they can’t overcome being somewhat behind in difficulty. If Stanford hits everything (which sometimes they don’t), they will win.
These computer models really love Oklahoma, but I know something ChatGPT doesn’t - Stanford is less likely than Oklahoma to compete the same line-ups it does in the postseason. The computer is giving Stanford a 25 % win possibility, while the human thinks it’s more like 50 50 and that luck will play a role. Oklahoma won MPSF last year, so I picked it. I also just felt like it.
The chokepoint in this meet is likely PH. Oklahoma dominates here, with three team totals 56 or over. Of note, Ignacio Yockers has been competing with lower difficulty on PH this year, but it’s paying off for his team. That tradeoff again. On the other hand, Stanford had been competing around the same total team difficulty on PH as Oklahoma but is ranked 13th in the nation as opposed to number 1 for Oklahoma. HB is another event that Oklahoma will want to control.
California and Air Force don’t have the difficulty to compete with the top two. California will likely finish ahead of Air Force, although there was a meet this season where it was pretty close, so that isn’t a given. If California has a bad VT rotation and Air Force hits PH (among other things), that could lead to an Air Force upset.
ECAC
April 4th @ Army 1PM EDT. Live Stats
Using all scores over the whole season. Teams may come into the meet with higher than their average D score.
Human picks - Greenville, Army, Navy
Computer picks - Navy, Army, Greenville.
Both of us have Springfield as a possibility for the podium.
Greenville, Army and Navy are fairly close together. Who wins will likely depend on the day. Of all the teams, only Greenville, Army, and Navy have scored over 314, so I’m giving them the edge over Springfield.
Greenville is coming in with the highest difficulty (but not by much) , Army with the highest average execution, and Navy with the best balance between the two (which is why the computer is favoring Navy. The winner here will be highly dependent on luck. Any one of the top three could do it, and I would not rule Springfield out. The battle between third and fourth could also be exciting. As can be seen from the graphic, Springfield and Army are very close together. Army will have home gym advantage and may have been pulled down in the computer model by one really bad meet early in the season.