Illinois men’s gymnastics coach Justin Spring gives his thoughts on the new match play format that was used for the Illini meet vs. Minnesota on March 8, 2013 at Huff Hall. Illinois defeated the Gophers 21-9 in the experimental format.
Click PLAY or watch the interview on YouTube.
Here’s Ron Noe’s write-up:
A revolutionary effort to shake things up in College Men’s Gymnastics took place last night in Champaign, IL.
Host Illinois took on Minnesota in the first ever Match Play format.
Carrying on with the 5-up/5-count system, each team went head-to-head on each event in Olympic order. The team behind in the score was then allowed to put their man up last, which allowed for some great strategy, since there were no set lineups. Reviews were mixed, but it certainly added some excitement, at least in the first three rotations. …
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Sounds like two apparatus should be competed simultaneously. To save time.
For example: Floor and Pommels, Rings and Vault, P Bars and H Bar
Strategy would be even more complex. 
12 comments ↓
This sounds like a modified version of the head-to-head approach announced by the NCAA Men’s Rules Committee this year. The announced approach specifically had teams competing on two events at a time (though still one gymnast competing at a time): Floor vs PH (then switch), SR vs V (then switch), PB vs HB (then switch). That approach would involve more complex strategy, as Coach Rick noted, but it would also involve a less direct comparison between gymnasts and would be thus be harder for the audience to understand why one gymnast won over another. The audience would certainly be able to follow the underlying scores — e.g., a 15.4 on FX is higher than a 14.3 on PH — but if the teams alternated on the same event, it would offer a more direct comparison between gymnasts — e.g., the Stanford guy’s Floor routine looked more difficult than the Michigan guy’s Floor routine (as opposed to Floor vs PH, etc.). And since the head-to-head format relies on awarding one point to the better gymnast on his event, it’s more in keeping with that scoring system to use a direct comparison between gymnasts on the same event. That said, both approaches I’ve mentioned suffer from the same flaw — the meet is slower and takes longer because one gymnast is competing at a time. Just some off-the-cuff thoughts to ponder as this experiment evolves.
I don’t think the match play really adds anything to the meet, personally I think the 5 up 5 count is exciting enough and creates more potential for a level playing field. I like the idea of them going head to head on the apparatus without the match points, because different events have different avg’s of scoring and it makes it harder to follow the team score (i.e floor is usually scored higher than pommels, vault v. rings, etc.)…. but it would certainly make for a longer meet. An ideal meet would be head to head with 3 up 3 count under normal scoring. But with the limited number of teams, spots in line ups and rosters are already difficult to get, I wouldn’t want to change any rules that limit the amount of chances guys get to compete.
From the live feed it sounded really interesting, although they certainly need to show the scores and also start values. The strategy of this format is really good and is probably it’s strength. I certainly hope we see more of this format.
I don’t like the idea of in future not making it to certain apparatus. Now that NCAA men’s gymnastics is on the FIG scoring system, we’re seeing many more guys from the NCAA on the national team. Not making it to certain events, probably that will end up being pommel horse, could further weaken the U.S. in building depth and difficulty on this event. It’s more or less everyone’s weakness because of its unpredictable nature. Even though a team is capable of posting their best scores on pommels, like Ohio State, it’s not guaranteed–see their meet against Michigan. These “strong” pommel teams will probably opt out of pommels if possible, starting on rings hoping that the meet will be over by HB or floor. I guess it would be entertaining to see a team take a risk starting on an ok/good event for them that is a weakness for their rival.
The concept is interesting and I’d love to see it before coming up with a strong opinion, but I wouldn’t like to see any events suffer from lack of representation or the number of guys competing reduced for the sake of time.
First of all, this is Spring’s baby and he’s going to deem it a success, no matter what. (And I say that as a huge fan of both his gymnastics and his coaching.) Second, for me, even without seeing it yet, the fact that this meet was almost 3-1/2 hours is an epic fail right there. At 2 hours many meets feel way too long. 3-1/2? To “increase” spectator interest. Ridiculous!
I talked to a couple Gopher alums who drove down from Chicago to watch, and their feeling was something along the lines of “disaster.” Lots of crowd confusion, over-long and way lopsided. And, by the way, attendance, even though this was, by far, the most promoted meet of Illinois’ season, wasn’t outstanding, according to them either.
Again, I haven’t seen it myself yet, but just looking at the outcome, I have to agree. I mean, while I think everyone would agree that Illinois is clearly the better team, they’re not THAT unevenly matched with Minnesota. Can you imagine the total if they were competing against UIC? (I can it would be 30-0.)
I have no idea what problem this is the solution to, but love the format or hate it, it’s not going to help in any way, shape or form to save men’s NCAA gymnastics. The only thing that saves the sport at this point is 1) the Olympic exemption from the NCAA, thus reenforcing that being as much like the Olympics as possible -which is the kind of gymnastics most of the world understands-is your best bet and 2-1,000,000) Money. Money. Money, And did I mention money?
If you want to save the sport, send $100 to your favorite university’s donation department and earmark it for men’s gym. If 20 additional fans did that for every team out there, that would do a lot more than getting 50-100 more butts in the seats at a meet, even though the latter ain’t a bad thing either.
Of all your concerns, Dave, the worst is the length of competition.
It has to stay under 2hrs.
That’s why they need compete 2 apparatus simultaneously, cut the time nearly in half.
The length didn’t bother me. Not seeing the scores did.
Some of the extra length may have due to TV production.
I’m not the least bit surprised some Gophers were less than thrilled. The Illini are probably a better team than the Gophers, but they are not the almost twice as good the match play format score seemed to indicate.
There will never be an Olympic exemption as long as Title lX and/or U.S. constitutional law maintain their current form. Forget about it.
Spring wants to increase attendance for the men’s NCAA. A sport which draws 5000 + to events and becomes part of campus culture is unlikely to be cut, even if it’s a money loser. It also stands to reason that the greater the number of fans a sport attracts, the greater the numbers of both potential donors and people who will protest attempts to cut the sport.
Whether this new format will accomplish that is an open question. Personally, I doubt it, but lacking the ability to see into the future I really cannot know. I will say I think attributing the relatively small fan base of the men’s NCAA to the meet format and scoring system is a vast oversimplification of a very complex problem, but one has to start somewhere.
My biggest concern is actually the one Dude brought up…loss of participation opportunities. Although from a sporting standpoint I have nothing but good things to say about 5 up 5 count, I have the same concern there. I think a line needs to be drawn about the concept of stopping meets once one team reaches a specified number of points. This was actually not done in this case, as the meet counts for Championship qualifying scores.
If the new format were adopted, I doubt that it would actually hurt the sport (although the potential for weak teams to go through a season of all zeros is a concern).
On the other hand, loss of participation opportunities could.
The biggest problem with the current format is having 2 apparatus going at the same time. They really need to move to just 1 apparatus at a time. With that they would need to reduce the number of gymnasts per event to 4 to keep the comps to a reasonable time (or perhaps get the judges to get scores out quicker). I like both the traditional and match play formats as long as the scoring is done properly and you can see after EVERY routine who is winning and by how much. Currently TV coverage is really bad, you don’t get to see the scores until the end of the rotation. That needs to be fixed.
As a fan, I would prefer to see everything, but as a supporter of men’s college gym, I am unwilling to sacrifice participation opportunities to do that.
I agree with Clinton about the scoring coverage on TV being really bad. That needs to be fixed.
1 apparatus at a time is the way to go. Perhaps have the judging staggered (2 more judges) for time. For TV it is fine, since they have commentary and replays.
I sorta like the idea of not going to all the events. Make it more about the match ITSELF. Than the individual gymnasts.
Being a “Star Driven League” focused as much on the individual as the team hasn’t hurt the NBA. Just ask LeBron James. Sports are as much about stories as they are about competition. When it comes to stories, individuals matter.
Just watched the Illinois Minnesota meet and loved it! it didn’t take the whole meet until I was interested on what the score was. I was able to follow the meet and the score the entire time and I knew the meet was over when illinois swept minnesota on vault to go up 14-6 in the 4th rotation. Would have loved to see the start values so I could have a better idea of who had the harder routines. Also would have liked if the BTN would have kept the score on the TV the whole time. Other than that this format is AWESOME!
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