Windham Wrap-up: Soaring Gymnastics Scores around the Country

Through five weeks of the season, there have already been 23 perfect 10s in collegiate gymnastics compared to 31 for all of the 2021 season.

Alabama gymnastics had its best performance of the season inside Coleman Coliseum on Friday night in the tri-meet win over North Carolina and Western Michigan. The 197.875 matched the highest total of the Dana Duckworth era and was the highest regular season score since March 2014 against Stanford. 

It was the highest score by an SEC team on Friday night. LSU and Auburn competed on Saturday, and the LSU Tigers posted a 197.975 to get the win over Auburn. But even that wasn't the highest score of the weekend. 

In a tri-meet at Rutgers, the defending national champion Michigan scored a 198.525 with four perfect 10s. If you're not familiar with gymnastics scoring, these numbers probably don't appear to be that different from each other, but every tenth is a big deal in collegiate gymnastics. The Wolverines' score was about as close to perfection as you can get. It was the sixth highest score in NCAA history and highest since 2004.  

Gymnastics is a unique sport in that scores and winning/losing are completely subjective based on what the judges see, or sometimes more importantly what they don't see. What they've seen so far this season is some really high scores. 

"We're in a subjective sport," Duckworth said. "So beauty's in the eye of the beholder, and we realize that."

According to USA gymnastics, there have already been 23 perfect 10s given out this season— eight on vault, four on uneven bars, four on balance beam and seven on floor. Throughout all of the 2021 season, there were only 31 perfect scores given out. It's already at 23 this year just five weeks into the season. Through five weeks, there are already as many perfect 10s on floor as there were all of last season. 

The breakdown of perfect 10s goes to Florida (5), Oklahoma (4), Michigan (4), Minnesota (2), LSU (2), Utah (2) and Auburn, Oregon State, UCLA and Georgia all with one. Alabama has not yet had a gymnast receive a perfect score this season. Both Makarri Doggette and Luisa Blanco earned a 10 for the Crimson Tide last season. 

I am not trying to take away anything from any of the teams or gymnasts that have earned high scores. I also fully acknowledge that I could not even attempt to do 99 percent of what these athletes do. I'm just pointing out that judges have been more generous this season than in recent years. And as long as that is equally applied across all of collegiate gymnastics, that's fine. It becomes an issue when only certain teams or gymnasts are given the benefit of the doubt in scoring.

Duckworth said that high scoring in gymnastics can be kind of cyclical. So far, this year appears to be on the upside of the cycle. The scores are important and do matter for seeding for the postseason, but it will become a level playing field for all in the postseason at the SEC or NCAA championships when all teams are being scored by the same judges.