No surprise: Shire shines. The University of Utah is probably wishing Missouri senior Sarah Shire had never left.
Shire, who competed for the Utes her freshman season and then returned to Missouri, has surprised everyone (including herself) by maturing into one of the top NCAA all-arounders in the U.S. At Missouri's regular season meets, she was consistently winning the all-around and three-plus individual events. Competition was tougher at the conference championships, but her all-around result was the same.
No surprise: Bruins coasting along. UCLA's team score -- 197.35 -- was the highest posted by a team at any of this weekend's conference championships, validating what many have been saying about 2010 being UCLA's year.
Despite the fact that they'd been beaten twice already by in-state rival Stanford, UCLA was going to win the Pac 10 title if the team did what it was capable of. Yes, it won the Pac 10 title, but did the team do everything it could have? Probably not. UCLA's stars -- Anna Li and Vanessa Zamarripa -- sizzled to win their individual titles, but the Bruins can still improve, notably early in the lineup.
Surprise: Gators chomp Tide. Kudos to Florida for winning the SEC title for the first time since 2007. Bigger kudos for defeating no. 1 Alabama along the way.
No surprise: Georgia struggles. No matter how well the team may be doing in intrasquads, the five-time NCAA champions have not shown the same fire -- or consistency -- this season. In a never-say-never kind of way, the Georgia faithful are now harking back to 2005, when the Gym Dogs qualified 12th to the NCAA Championships and pulled off a huge upset to win the title. Never say never, but it seems less and less likely with every 9.6 this team counts.
No surprise: Personett persuing perfection. Penn State senior Brandi Personett, she of the full-twisting double layout on floor and two perfect 10s on vault this season alone, was back at the top of the podium at the Big 10 Championships, winning all-around and floor outright.
Surprise: Illinois. The Illini, fresh off their first NCAA team appearance last year, do not appear to be headed back. They finished a disappointing sixth out of seven teams at the Big 10 Championships.
No surprise: O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A. The Sooners have kept booming (boy, I bet riffs on the mascot never get used in sports stories about Oklahoma). Anyways, given the pre-season rankings, OU has been a big surprise, but given anyone that has followed NCAA gymnastics this season, it's not a shock to see Oklahoma post the second-highest score of any school at this weekend's conference championships.
In some ways that means the Sooners were no. 2 again, as they've been in the NCAA rankings for much of the season. But at its best, this team is probably better than that score. For example, that 197.15 came after sophomore Megan Ferguson, arguably the team's no. 2 beamworker, missed and scored only 9.35. Whether we've seen Oklahoma at its best is TBD, but like UCLA, the Sooners seem to be just gathering steam.
Surprise: Nervous moments from favorites. I would have picked LSU senior Susan Jackson and Michigan junior Kylee Botterman to win the all-around at the SEC and Big 10 Championships, respectively. Neither happened. However, after Jackson's almost completely mistake-free regular season, she was overdue for something like the 9.55 she got on floor at SECs. No matter how hard they train and how many regular season all-around titles they win, gymnasts are only human.
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