April 4, 2012
THIS WEEK: The University of Iowa men’s gymnastics team hosts the 2012 Big Ten Championships on Friday and Saturday inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Both days of competition begin at 7 p.m. (CT) and will be televised live by the Big Ten Network.
FORMAT: A team champion and all-around champion will be crowned Friday. The individual event finals competition will be Saturday. The top 10 individuals on each event Friday advance to Saturday’s event finals.
BIG TEN STRENGTH: All seven Big Ten teams are ranked in the top-11. The Big Ten has 48 ranked gymnasts. Iowa will be competing against top-ranked Penn State, No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Minnesota, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 8 Michigan and No. 9 Nebraska. The Hawkeyes are ranked 11th.
LAST TIME OUT: The Hawkeyes finished the regular season strong, setting a new mark for their season high team score. Iowa scored a 343.350 on March 24 at Nebraska, besting its previous top score by five points. The Hawkeyes had four first place finishes; junior Broderick Shemansky on all-around and high bar, freshman Mitchell Landau on parallel bars and junior Anton Gryshayev on still rings. Junior Matt McGrath also had three runner-up finishes, placing second on floor exercise, vault and rings.
GRYSHAYEV EARNS BIG TEN HONOR: Gryshayev was named Big Ten Co-Gymnast of the Week after breaking the school record on rings against the Cornhuskers. Gryshayev placed first on the event, scoring a 15.750 to break the school record by nearly five-tenths. Only three scores nationally have been better than that mark. Gryshayev owns the top-seven scores on rings in program history.
IN THE RANKINGS: The Hawkeyes jumped from No. 12 to No. 11 in the rankings after posting a 343.350 to finish the season. Junior Javier Balboa is ranked eighth on parallel bars and 13th on all-around, Gryshayev is ranked 12th on rings and Shemansky is ranked 12th on all-around.
LIVE RESULTS: Live results of the Big Ten Championships are available at http://live.hawkeyegymnastics.com
HEAD COACH JD Reive: JD Reive is in his second season at the helm of the program after a record-setting season his first year at Iowa. Six gymnasts punched their ticket to the NCAA Championships under Reive’s guidance. Iowa also broke four team records and five individual records. Reive came to Iowa after serving as an assistant coach at Stanford from 2003-10, where he helped coach 44 All-Americans.
UP NEXT: The NCAA Qualifier is April 19, and the NCAA Championships are April 20-21 in Norman, Okla.