NCAA Bits and Pieces

Unfortunately, I never got around to doing an NCAA Nationals post (or a Euros post... *sigh*), but the NCAA world is making it up to me by giving us a ton of post-season news to pore over!

Florida
Rhonda has left Florida, in case you live under a rock and haven't heard about it yet. She's now Senior Vice President of the Women's Program at USAG. There is some speculation that her role is putting her in place to take over for Martha when she eventually decides to retire, and I would really like to see that happen. With all the broken athletes he coached at WOGA, the idea of Valeri taking over makes me cringe. I'm already panicky that he's been given athlete development. The program Rhonda built at Florida definitely shows promise for a future NTC. They have difficult, precise, and aesthetic gymnastics, and they have a well-rounded distribution of talent across all four events. In other words, in case you can't tell, I really want Rhonda to be next in line for Martha's role!
Florida's new head coach will be Jenny Rowland of Auburn. This I'm not as happy about. Sure, she's great, and Florida's in good hands but- I wanted Auburn to break into the national champions pack (and LSU, and Stanford, and a bunch of others but those three for now) and so I'm a bit leery of what that might do to them.
The thing I'll be most interested to see is if there will be a watershed of gymnasts leaving for other programs. So far, the army of future elites looks to be secure, but I'll be keeping my eyes peeled.

Tabitha Yim is my new least favorite person
She's now at U of A, which means we are now enemies. Not much else to say really. Rene's skill on beam will be a big help to ASU's future, as will gymnasts not being injured this season. And they have some good recruits. Grrr, down with U of A.

Elites are responding to my desires
As in, they are going to schools other than Florida and UCLA! Polina Shchennikova is going to Michigan, which honestly kind of surprises me. I don't know, I just don't think of Michigan as a Polina team. I would have picked UCLA or Oregon State for her. But I like Michigan better than both and I like Polina, so I don't mind too much. Or at all. I'm definitely looking forward to her bars and beam with NCAA perfection. And, more excitingly (for me, at least), Alexis Vasquez has committed to Denver! All the good things! The sadness for me here is she's retiring from elite. I personally prefer Alexis to Norah (and Rachel, for those who are Rio-eligible), and I was really looking forward to seeing her this year, especially seeing as Martha seemed to like what she saw from her. I get that Worlds was likely to be out of the picture, but she definitely could have made a PanAms team! But on to the good, DENVER! Denver is one of my favorite teams and I love the progress they're making. Yes, Alexis is going to Denver! Not necessarily a team I would have picked for her either, but that's not what I care about when a gymnast I love is going to a school I love.