Greetings from Maturi Pavilion, where I am coming to you live and in person for this exciting Big Ten matchup. This has the potential to be a very close meet with the Gophers and Illini sitting just a half-tenth apart in their average score for the season (not to mention right next to each other in the rankings).
The Illini are coming off of a big win against Nebraska, where they put up a season-best 196.700 to defeat the Huskers by nearly a full point. They also arrive at this matchup 2-0 in the Big Ten (the jury is still out on what last week’s tie means for Minnesota and Iowa). The rotation to watch for Illinois will be right out of the gate on bars, which has been a bit of a sticking point so far this season. If the team can put up a clean rotation, it will be setting itself on the right path for a potential upset.
The Gophers also put up their best score of the season last week at 196.875—improving most notably on beam—which continues to be a bit of a hurdle for this squad. That being said, freshman Brooklyn Rowray had a breakout routine here last week with a 9.900, so expect to see her playing a big role in this lineup moving forward. Minnesota has been relatively solid on the other three events, so it will be looking for a clean rotation on beam to…
