re: Remove

2020 SEC Gymnastics Community Service Team was Announced. LSU's RUBY HARROLD was named to the team today.

Congrats to our four!
The most striking thing about that list to me is Georgia and Alabama only having one, last in SEC...wow.

How do they decide on the cut off? I know at Nationals it is top 4 from each session. So does that mean regular season honors are top 8 for first team and the next 8 for 2nd team?

I feel bad that Trinity will be a junior next year and still will not have competed at Nationals with her team.

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I feel bad that Trinity will be a junior next year and still will not have competed at Nationals with her team.

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She may have been the deciding factor in winning national title last yer if she had signed with LSU as expected during her recruiting. If the reason she spurned LSU was true as reported by those with knowledge I would have no compassion.

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What was the reason she didn't sign to LSU?

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It was reported by someone on this board who appears to have close contacts with involved parties that she dropped LSU because one of the coaches tweeted in support of Donald Trump and MAGA. I trust the source but there may be more to it. It was also supposed to be a UCLA and LSU battle, then suddenly Florida was her choice out of the blue.

Trinity chose Florida over LSU and UCLA for a few reasons (some personal) but it is what it is. We simply didn't win that recruiting battle, we have won many of our fair shares (Lexie Priessman, Sarah Finnegan, Kiya Johnson) among really notable examples. Kiya Johnson was almost Georgia bound before we flipped her the summer leading up to signing day. We beat out Georgia and Florida for Elena Arenas. LSU beat out OU for Annie Beard. Win some you lose some, LSU is in a great position talent wise for the future. Getting kids healthy this offseason with the addition of that incoming recruiting class, LSU is set up for a big year with much more depth across the board.


LSU finally announced the all Americans

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I thought when the training facility opened and combined with an already elite Top 4 program that LSU recruiting would be like Alabama football and Kentucky and Duke basketball where they would clearly separate from the rest. Certainly three runnersup finishes in four years may attest to that, but it does not seem over the course of the last four regular seasons they have created a large gap in talent. However, when the post season light s have shone brightest they have brought it for the most part. How do you assess the impact of the facility?

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I think LSU has turned the corner as a program for two big reasons. First LSU brought in jay Clark. LSU has not had the talent to compete with the national powers for years. We may have gotten some great gymnasts here and there but not enough to compete at the team level. Jay is one of the best recruiters out there. You really could credit many national titles to him from his crazy amount of talent he brought in to Georgia. The new facility is incredible is a game changer as well, it’s also helped recruit and make lasting impressions. Alyona coming to LSU for national team camp gave her a big exposure and she ended up wanting to come to LSU down the road. Olivia Dunne, Tori Tatum and Elena were blown away by the facilities. It’s been pretty significant for us as a program and it even impacts how much more efficient they can train.

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Maybe Mckenna and Lexie's injuries and the injuries this season have masked the level of talent that has been brought in.

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LSU’s biggest issue right now is overall team health and health of incoming freshmen. Desiderio, Dean, Campbell all came to LSU behind the ball. Many of them missed multiple years of JO before LSU which put them behind on their development. Ferrer had some nagging injuries that restricted her training. She missed this year for other reasons. Kai came no where close to giving us her best because of a severe ankle injury. Alyona rushed just to put out a bars routine. She really would give us a lot more if she weren’t coming off the Achilles. Throw in injuries to Ryan, Edney and Edwards we are throwing a lot of routines out there we don’t want.

There are some clear spots on the team that are weaker than the past teams but overall health is not allowing kids to develop and build. They are either rolling to LSU in crutches or struggle staying health for competition

I don't see Dana as a good fit at LSU. If anything, if DD were to retire soon, I'd rather see a former gymnast assume the assistant coaching role (i.e. bring Gnat back).

I don’t really feel sorry for any gymnasts that go to compete for an underachieving, national bars coach in Jenny Rowland. Just my opinion. She should have won at least 1 national title in the last 3 years. I think she should have to recused herself of national bars person. when she took a head coaching job or is she not doing that anymore?

I’ve been watching a lot of gymnastics on YouTube these past two weeks...mainly LSU vs. Florida. My focus was mainly how the former elites (the seniors) have fared once they got to college. I focused on Gowey, Hundley, and Chant mostly. I think where Jenny Rowland has fallen short with her elites is that they often have watered down vaults, often only doing fulls. Some don’t even make the vault lineup. They keep their skills on the other events. So basically Florida is relying on their lessor known gymnasts to bring in huge vault scores, which doesn’t always happen. I don’t know if it’s the conditioning or what, but that’s the biggest problem I see with Florida over the past few years.

And I’m kinda happy that Dunne and Arenas quit doing elite gymnastics a few years before they came to college. Their bodies are in much better shape, although Dunne has had a few injuries the past two years. Hopefully they both stay healthy for next year.