Red Rocks

[Johnny80]

Is your bracket busted? Catch the Red Rocks on ESPN U here at 7:30. This is the last regular season meet and senior night. Hope we can send them off with a win!! 

[Johnny80]

Merrell-Giles with a 10 on the floor!

[89ute]

I thought for sure we were going to see back to back 10s on floor. Actually, we did. Skinner threw up an 11 actually!

I’m hearing she is disliked/hated by judges. Where is this coming from? Why? I don’t want to take away from Makenna’s 10, but Skinner’s routine blew MaKenna’s out of the water.

I saw on twitter that Skinner was being blasted for doing “pistol fingers” in her routine. I think she dropped it. I was curious to see what she would do. Smart on her part, even though the criticism was silly and uncalled for.

[Johnny80]

I think that because she is so good the judges use any and all excuses to nit-pick her. The only college gymnast who can do a double-double and stick it every time, yet the “10” alludes her. I thought the reason she was getting high 9’s last year was because she was a freshman and the judges figured that no freshman could/should  consistently pull 10’s. Now I don’t know what the hell is going on. 

[RedLine]

There’s something going on for sure.  10 is low in international competition.  Skinner is putting up higher than 10 level routines and the NCAA judges are docking her for ticky form landings or minor balance checks.  Broadcasters were pointing out slight deductions on Merrell-Giles’ floor routine that ended up making a 10.  No slight on MaKenna but the level of gymnastics that Skinner is performing is higher level than than these judges are normally assessing in NCAA meets.