On Feb. 1, the Michigan men’s gymnastics team was reeling after a five-plus point loss to then-No. 7 Penn State in State College.
A week later, the sixth-ranked Wolverines defeated No. 2 Illinois with their highest scoring meet of the year. Now, they’re looking to keep their momentum up heading into a matchup at No. 1 Oklahoma.
“We were sick, we went through loss after loss,” Michigan coach Yuan Xiao said Saturday. “We had something to identify, and the early season is better than the postseason. But today’s the turning point. Paul Juda came back, Fred Richard came back, and we put up what I call team competition. We are at our strengths right here. Everyone sees that it’s a different team. ”
The junior Richard and graduate Juda, two of the United States’ five men’s gymnasts at the 2024 Paris Olympics, have gotten back into the swing of NCAA gymnastics over the last few weeks after spending time on the Gold Over America Tour.
“I’m getting back in shape,” Richard said Saturday. “I’m healthy, I’m coming back strong. I think I still have a lot of room (to improve), which is deadly for the other teams, but it’s great for Michigan, and that’s what’s exciting for the team.”
For Richard, getting back in shape meant three scores of at least 14.200 against the Illini, including the highest-scoring high bar and the second-highest parallel bar routines of the NCAA season. And as a whole, the Wolverines put up the top team performances of the NCAA season on both floor and parallel bars, posting a 55.300 and 56.900, respectively.
“I think it just knocks everybody off of their horses, you know, knocks them off guard,” Richard said. “They might sleep on us for little and then they realize, ‘oh shoot, they’re still as good as they were last year, or better. We should be scared.’ So they probably should be scared, because I would be.”
But Michigan’s next matchup will be as hard as they come. The Sooners are averaging over three points per meet more than any other team in the country as they’ve taken down a top-five opponent in each of the last three weekends, including No. 3 Stanford on Saturday.
Anchored by Turkish Olympian Emre Dodanli, Oklahoma boasts at least one top-10 competitor on every apparatus and three of the top six nationally on floor, rings and high bar. But the Sooners still haven’t competed at full strength.
Fuzzy Benas, who finished sixth in the all-around at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials after being named the College Gymnastics Association gymnast of the year has missed the first five meets of the year after having offseason surgery. Despite all of Oklahoma’s success this season, the Wolverines are looking forward to the opportunity to showcase their strength.
And they’re confident that they will.
“We beat the number two ranked team like it was nothing basically,” Richard said. “So we have a lot of potential. We’re gunning for first.”
Against the Sooners, Michigan will need to build on its success against Illinois. The meet will be an early indicator of how much the Wolverines learned from their early struggles, and how they’ll use those lessons to fuel them into the postseason.
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