No. 5 Illinois men’s gymnastics is heading into its postseason this weekend with the Big Ten Championship, which will be hosted at State Farm Center. The team’s regular season ended with a 13-2 record and an undefeated season at home. Graduate Connor McCool said the team is excited to get to host since it is such a rare experience. McCool also noted that while competing at home, the team has remained undefeated for two years.
“The big thing is embracing being in State Farm Center,” McCool said. “We’ll have a bigger crowd and a really friendly environment.”
No. 5 Illinois will be competing against No. 3 Nebraska, No. 4 Michigan, No. 6 Ohio State and No. 7 Penn State this upcoming weekend. While all teams have had impressive seasons so far and both Illinois and Nebraska were co-champions for the regular conference season, there is one thing about this meet that will be unique. McCool spoke on how all of the judges’ scoring will be the same and each team is on the same playing field. He also noted that the judges at Illinois are extremely talented and, therefore, may take off more deductions than others.
“Gymnastics is not like track where everyone has the same stopwatch,” McCool noted. “It’s really hard to properly rank teams; it uses scoring from different judges all over the country.”
30 different routines will be showcased this weekend, with five routines in each of the six events. With such a talented team, McCool said that each routine that will be done has been worked on since August and that the final lineup is well deserved.
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“All of these guys that are going to be in our lineup are people that have earned it,” McCool said. “They’re doing their job every day in practice.”
The meet this weekend will take place in two sessions, both Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. CST. Friday’s session will showcase the team finals and the all-around event finals. Illinois will be starting on the still rings and vault, then moving onto the bar events with the parallel bar and the horizontal bar, followed by the floor event and ending the night on the pommel horse Friday night. Then, on Saturday night, the ten highest-scoring athletes for each event will be moving on to the event finals.
This weekend will also mark the second-to-last meet weekend for the Illini. McCool was able to talk about how the team is coming together and how to know if the team is competing at its best.
“Just embracing the moments we have together regardless of what the result is,” McCool furthered. “If we’re not having a good time we’re probably not performing well, that’s how this team works.”
Illinois men’s gymnastics will be competing at the Big Ten Championship meet at State Farm Center on April 5 and 6.
