#8 Denver will compete in NCAA National Championship Semifinals One

The competition starts at 1:00 PM Mountain on Thursday, April 13 and will air on ESPN2 and stream on ESPN+. The streaming service will have event feeds, so you can watch every routine of every DU gymnast if you switch feeds as they rotate.

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Join me Thursday afternoon at The Pioneer Bar ( 2401 S University Blvd, Denver, CO) to watch the action and talk everything gymnastics! Who needs to stay at work when DU Gymnastics is at Nationals?

Competition Preview

There is a real possibility that Denver could advance to the Four on the Floor finals.

The field consists of:

1. Oklahoma
2. Utah
3. Florida
4. California
5. UCLA
6. LSU
7. Kentucky
8. Denver

By knocking off Michigan and Oregon State, DU definitely has the easier of the two semifinal brackets. They will go head to head with Florida, LSU, and California.

In order to advance to the Finals, Denver will need to finish first or second in Semifinal 1. Looking at the field, this is feasible.

Florida will be the most formidable. But they were without their star high scorer, All Around National Champion, Trinity Thomas at the Pittsburgh Regional Final. No word on if she’ll be back for Nationals. Even without Thomas, Florida finished second in their regional with a 197.8.

California is a team who has hovered around the same rankings as DU for the past nine seasons, but has reached new levels this year. Their #4 ranking is the highest ever season-end team rank. They have scored above 198 three times this season. They didn’t have a great meet in round 1 of the Pittsburgh Regional, but rallied in the regional final to win. This is certainly a team on fire right now.

Denver bested LSU at regionals in both rounds, including head-to-head competition in the finals. They can do it one more time.

Denver is coming off of a huge upset of Michigan at their home regionals. It is possible for another upset of two of these three teams on Thursday. CollegeGymNews.com has a data-driven model and created a postseason simulator that put DU’s chance of making it to Finals at 16.35%.

Denver is competing in Olympic order: vault, bars, beam, then floor. There have been a lot of ups and downs when it comes to team event scores this season. If DU is truly peaking at the right time, they can put together four solid rotations and advance to the National Finals.

Florida starts on bars, LSU on beam and California is starting on floor.

Individual Champions will be decided on Thursday

Because Denver qualified to the National Semifinals as a team, everyone on the team who competes on any event (including All Around) is in the individual national championships. So anyone who has a great day or even one great event has a shot at winning a title.

Individual event and All-Around champions will be determined on Thursday. There are no individual event finals. All scores from both semifinals will be ranked together and the champions crowned after semifinal 2 on Thursday evening. (This means when it comes to NCAA Finals on Saturday, it is strictly a team competition.)

Count on multiple ties for the top individual spots, just like we saw in 2019 when Lynnzee Brown was National Floor Co-Champion. There are no tiebreakers for individual champions.

So a lot rides on both individuals and DU as a team on Thursday. They don’t need miracles, they just need to stay calm and focused and have good day. They need to put together four solid rotations. Denver has a shot here if they can do that!

Let’s Go DU!