Iowa State’s meet at Magness on February 1st turned out to be their last of the season. Five days after the Cyclone’s loss to DU, and just one day before their next scheduled competition. ISU head coach Ashley Miles Greig announced, “At this time, we do not have enough student-athletes available to safely field a team against West Virginia, and regrettably must cancel this competition.” Then even more shockingly, on February 8th, Iowa State canceled the entire remainder of their 2026 season. https://cyclones.com/news/2026/2/8/iowa-state-cancels-remainder-of-gymnastics-season. ISU states they do not have enough athletes available to “safely compete,” but the NCAA doesn’t have a requirement to field an entire team so the gymnastics community wonders why ISU has cut the season short for all of their athletes.
Iowa State gymnastics had struggled through the first five weeks of the season, illustrated by the four point loss at Denver where ISU had seven falls across the four events. Gymnastics fans across the country are with the ISU student-athletes and truly hope this isn’t the beginning of the end for their gymnastics program. In sport, no one likes the loss of competition no matter which team we root for.
Denver sits atop the Big 12 standings with a 3-0 conference record. Utah also has a 3-0 conference, but has recorded non-conference losses, where DU is 6-0 overall. BYU is third, followed by Arizona State, West Virginia, and Arizona. Before canceling their season, Iowa State sat at 0-6 in conference competition in seventh place.
Denver hit a season high 196.95 at Arizona State on February 7. There were also several other season high stats and personal bests for the Pioneers, as noted in the Pioneer’s recap: https://denverpioneers.com/news/2026/2/7/no-18-denver-gymnastics-sets-new-seasons-best-at-asu.aspx
Next up for the Pioneers is a home meet in Magness versus Arizona on Valentine’s Day. Denver last faced the Wildcats on January 16th this year in a tri meet at Texas Women’s. While Arizona’s season average is nearly a point behind DU’s average, their season high score is just one tenth behind DU’s high. So their next meet could go either way. DU needs to keep up the momentum they found at ASU and stick their landings on February 14.
Photo courtesy @nduffphoto and @denver_gymnastics.
GO DU!
Guessing that Iowa State’s issues could be personnel related but likely budget issues with profit sharing and NIL. Iowa State University’s athletic department is facing a projected $147 million cumulative budget deficit through 2031, averaging nearly $25 million in annual shortfalls. This looks to be just one more canary in the coal mine.