“Pretty Clear Judging Error”: Fans Bash NCAA Judges Over BSU vs BYU Judgment at Championships Tournament

In a heated turn of events at the Championships Tournament, BYU women’s gymnastics heads to Fayetteville, Arkansas to face the Boise State Broncos for its 11th-straight NCAA Regionals appearance Wednesday evening at Bud Walton Arena. The winner of Wednesday’s highly anticipated dual meet is set to face No. 2 LSU, No. 15 Minnesota, and Oregon State, in a fierce competition scheduled for Thursday. 

The tournament, known for its fierce competition, took a surprising turn when the judges’ ruling sparked widespread backlash. Fans from various corners of the sporting world have taken to social media to vent their frustrations and demand transparency and accountability from the NCAA. 

Dissecting the NCAA judging decision in the BSU vs BYU showdown

Recently an incident happened during the BSU vs BYU competition. This incident was posted on Reddit by r/Gymnastics with the caption, “College Judging at its worst”. The tiebreaker that led to BYU advancing to round 2 instead of BSU. This noted scoring inconsistency has left many questioning the fairness and reliability of gymnastics scoring systems. Fans, deeply disheartened by the outcome and one fan sadly commented, “Pretty Clear Judging Error”. 

On the floor,

• Eliza Millar-Crossman and Olivia Matern set a strong tone with impressive scores of 9.800 each, laying a competition for BYU’s performance.
• Benson closed out the rotation with an excellent score of 9.825, contributing to BYU’s impressive floor score of 48.700.
• Millar-Crossman continued her stellar performance with a score of 9.850, setting the stage for senior Elease Rollins with a score of 9.875.
• The stellar performance by Brynlee Andersen with a score of 9.900 contributed significantly to BYU’s team beam score of 49.150, marking their highest event score of the entire meet.

One of the gymnasts ended with a 9.5 on a routine with a fall. After this the teams ended in a tie and BYU ended up winning the tie breaker by less than a tenth. After careful calculations, NCAA Judges determined that BYU had the higher overall score, finishing with a total of 233.65, compared to BSU’s 233.40. But because of this judging error, the wrong team is progressing to round 2. On this divisiveness, gymnastics fans are expressing anger and frustration over the result of the meet.

Fans react with fierce outrage to Championships Tournament results

There was an internet rush after the results given by the judges. BYU had the advantage of 233.650-233.400. One fan wrote surprisingly, “That was my first reaction when I saw they finished tied. So disappointed for Boise State that they won’t compete tomorrow due to a pretty clear judging error.” Another fan commented on judging and said, “But even if they did judge it as just a super deep landing 9.65 seems a bit too high no?”

Other fan went crazy looking at the judge’s decision and said, “Aren’t they supposed to have a judging conference if the score difference between judges is bigger than 0.2? Is that not happening at the bigger meets?” More fans went angry on this and commented on the process of declaring final results, “Totally agree with the appeal mechanism, particularly for the more determinative and consequential meets.” Lastly, a fan burst out and commented, “it’s giving ucla vs mizzou – “she was out” all over again”.

Following their hard-fought victory, the BYU Cougars are now gearing up to face off against No. 2-ranked LSU Tigers, the No. 15-ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers, and the No. 18-ranked Oregon State Beavers on Thursday night. Stay tuned for updates and highlights as the BYU Cougars take on their opponents in what promises to be an electrifying regional showdown.

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