Oklahoma women's gymnastics team aims for some redemption vs. Michigan in NCAA regional
NORMAN — The last time OU and Michigan met in the NCAA postseason, the drama was high.
Back in 2021, the Wolverines held off the Sooners in the final rotation, to claim their first national championship and relegate OU to runner-up status in the NCAA Championships in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Sooners have won each of the last two titles and enter this postseason — which begins Thursday in the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Regional — as the prohibitive favorites once again.
Before OU gets to a potential Saturday matchup with the Wolverines, it’ll have to get through Thursday’s second round.
The Sooners will face No. 16 North Carolina State, No. 17 Ohio State and the winner of Wednesday’s matchup between No. 31 Illinois and No. 34 Ball State.
The meet begins at 6 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+.
More: Oklahoma women's gymnastics team wins Big 12 championship with NCAA-record score
The top two teams from Thursday’s regional semifinals will advance to Saturday’s 4 p.m. regional final, where they’ll face the top two finishers of No. 11 Michigan, No. 8 Alabama, No. 23 Kent State and No. 25 Penn State.
The Sooners have won five of the last seven national titles, 13 consecutive regional titles and have the top-ever National Qualifying Score heading into this postseason with a 198.500.
In their last meet, March 23 at home in the Big 12 Championships, the Sooners set an NCAA record with a 198.950. The record of 198.875 had stood for 20 years since UCLA and Stanford reached the mark in 2004.
OU had set its program record twice before this season.
Jordan Bowers has set the tone for the Sooners this season, and is coming off a stunning performance at the Big 12 Championships where she became the first OU gymnast to score three perfect 10s in one meet and tied Maggie Nichols’ program-record all-around score of 39.925.
Bowers is tied for the nation’s best NQS score on the uneven bars at 9.975 with teammate Audrey Davis, is tied for second in the floor exercise and tied for fifth in the vault. She has the second-highest NQS score in the all-around at 39.775, behind only LSU’s Haleigh Bryant at 39.810.
Bowers wasn’t on the team when the Sooners fell to Michigan, but several other members of this year’s team were — Davis, Bell Johnson, Katherine LeVasseur and Ragan Smith among them.
The Sooners beat Michigan 198.650-197.325 on March 1 at Lloyd Noble Center and 197-850-195.875 on Jan. 5 in the season opener in Las Vegas.
Also, OU hasn’t competed against any of the other teams on its side of the regional this season. Last season, both Ohio State and North Carolina State were in the Norman regional, as was Alabama.
Here are two other things to know about the Sooners’ regional matchup:
More: Oklahoma women's gymnastics star Audrey Davis savoring final postseason run with Sooners
Michigan has OU ties
Kaile’ana Kanewa-Hermelyn is in her fifth season as a full-time assistant with the Wolverines.
Kanewa-Hermelyn was a gymnast for the Sooners from 2012-16, helping OU to national championships in 2014 and 2016. She earned All-America honors on both vault and floor in 2014.
Kanewa-Hermelyn also spent the 2017 season as a student assistant coach under K.J. Kindler with the Sooners.
OU's rotation order for Ann Arbor Regional
The Sooners will compete in Olympic order — vault, bars, balance beam, then floor exercise — in Thursday’s second-round matchup.
If OU advances — and it would be a monumental upset if it didn’t — the Sooners would begin on beam before moving on to floor, vault and then finishing on bars.
OU has the highest national qualifying score on three of the four events.
The only one where the Sooners aren’t ranked No. 1 is the floor, where LSU leads with 49.725. OU is second at 49.690.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU women's gymnastics eyes NCAA Tournament redemption at Michigan
