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Show DTAILY UTAH CHRONICLE Tuesday, April 8, 2014 7 COLUMN Gymnastics has the most indicative postseason RYAN MCDONALD Sports Editor L ast week, I wrote about how the NCAA Tournament isn't the best way to crown a champion because any of the 68 teams in the field can get hot during those few weeks and win the event, regardless of how well they played from November to mid-March. The way football does it isn't the answer, either. We all know how many problems the BCS created during its existence, but even now that it's over and a playoff will determine the champion beginning this fall, that still won't give us the best answer. Figur- ing out which four teams are the best will still largely be left up to somewhat arbitrary measures. There is one collegiate sport that I think has figured out the right method of determining the national champion: gymnastics. Back to basketball and football, my main beef with those sports is the fact that teams are ranked in the preseason and then those rankings are used as a baseline throughout the rest of the season. To illustrate the problem, let's look at Wichita State and Florida this season. The Shockers were ranked No. 16 in the country before the season began while the Gators were in the No. To spot. Florida certainly had a wonderful campaign, as it finished the regular season and SEC Tournament slate with a 32-2 record and entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. I team in the land. Wichita State finished even better with a 34-o mark, yet was only able to rise to the No. 2 spot in the national rankings. It's true the Shockers played in arguably an easier conference than the Gators, and Florida certainly deserves credit for having a great season, but I've gotta think that had Wichita State not started behind the Gators in the preseason poll, Gregg Marshall's squad would have been ranked higher than Billy Donovan's at the end of the year. This is why the gymnastics systemof ranking teams based entirely on team scores is beautiful. Yes, preseason rankings are released, but they don't really matter. After Week I, if Utah scored a 198 and UCLA scored a 197.9, the Red Rocks would be ranked higher than the Bruins in Week 2 regardless of where those squads were ranked in the preseason. Like basketball and football, these rankings are what determine matchups once the postseason rolls around, yet the way gymnastics bases rankings entirely around scores instead of arbitrary methods allows those matchups to be more even. Of course, it's still possible that upsets can happen in gymnastics. This year, No.15 Penn State snuck into the 12-team field that will cornpete at NCAA Championships in a week and a half, but at least we'll get a pretty great idea which gymnastics team is the best in the country. One thing I would change in the gymnastics postseason system, however, is the semifinal round. The 12 remaining teams are split into two sessions, each containing six teams. The top three teams of each session advance to the finals, or the Super Six round. There are times when a team that finishes in fourth place in one session registers a higher score than a team that places third in the other. Therefore, the team that placed third would make it over the team that placed fourth, despite the latter recording a higher score. Admittedly it would be difficult, if not impossible, to rank basketball and football teams based solely on scores. There are too many factors such as pace of play that affect how much scoring takes place in basketball and football, while gymnastics scores come entirely down to how well each gymnast performs her routine. Yes, it's a pipe dream to think basketball and football rankings can get more scientific like how gymnastics is, but it's nice to think that, unlike basketball this season, the team that wins the gym title will be a squad that has competed at a top level since the season began in January. r.mcdonald@chronicle.utah.edu Contact a. drysdale@chronicle. utah. edu for information about being a news writer for The Daily Utah Chronicle. University MEDIA SALES GROUP 9 1 5 2 2 tweet a little harder= twitter .1.,„,!ittertweei tweetertweet V V itt etete weetlemaniactw wci etrlizetr more tweets? peak twitter heard on ttli maltweetedtwetwa r RT twittertwW?N gre1A ,Mntarder tweet a little naraerspeak twitter need more tweets? 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