I'm in Columbus for the NIT, which I will discuss more in the next post. The reason I chose Columbus was that there were other events that I could see if it happened that there was no basketball in the area on these two days. Fortunately, there was hoops, but it did not conflict with the first event, a men's gymnastics dual meet at the Covelli Center (not to be confused with the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, where I saw the Phantoms win the Clark Cup last year).
I parked in the Buckeye 1 Lot, which was empty and generally doesn't charge after 4 p.m. weekdays. With the meet starting at 4, I figured I could leave the car there at 3:55 without worry, and then walk over to the basketball game afterwards. Seems like that strategy worked, though the lot was quite full afterwards as many park there for free and take a shuttle to the basketball game.
There are no tickets here, you just walk in and join the 300 or so fans already inside. The Covelli Center was opened in 2017 and still has that brand new stadium smell. It seats 3,700 and I expect most of those seats to be filled when the nationals are held here next month. In addition to gymnastics, Buckeye volleyball, wrestling, and fencing use this as a home facility. Wrestling won the national championship in 2015 and that trophy is on display along the back wall, along with many more.
Most peculiar was the Big Ten wrestling trophy from 1923, when Rutgers, Maryland, and Nebraska were apparently all members.
Of course, you can sit where you want, and with six events taking place, most fans moved around to get the best vantage point at each rotation. Ohio State was ranked 6th, while Nebraska was 5th, which sounds like a great battle until you learn that only 15 schools sponsor men's gymnastics.
Compared to the quad meet at Alabama, where there were four teams on four events at all times, there was only one event held at a time here, so you could focus on the single athlete competing. Each rotation saw five gymnasts per team participating, and all scores were counted toward the total. Unlike the women, the men include difficulty (between 4.7 and 6.1 today, though lower and higher difficulties are possible), so overall scores generally range from 12-16, though most fall between 13 and 15. The six events in Olympic order are floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar.
The meet began with floor exercise, which Nebraska won 71.2 to 70.15, then moved on to the horse, another Cornhusker victory at 71.7 to 69.1. There were two minutes between each event and the judges were the same, so most of the time was spent watching them move from table to table. Each event takes about 20 minutes, so the entire meet was done in just over two hours.
Nebraska continued to dominate, taking the rings 68.75 to 66.55 so the running score was 211.65 to 205.8. And you thought the NBA All-Star Game was high scoring! There was a six-minute intermission between the rings and vault, a very short halftime.
The Buckeyes won the vault by 0.7 points, and then Nebraska's Sam Phillips did something wrong on the parallel bars and Ohio State won that event by 2.85 points, leaving them just 2.2 points back entering the high bar. The Buckeye athletes tried to get the crowd into it by shouting 'O-H' and the crowd responded 'I-O', but the effect was less dramatic than at a football game here.
Unfortunately, the Cornhuskers were solid in the high bar and won the meet by a final score of 418.2 to 414.15.
There was actually a correction after the fact, with Ohio State getting an extra .05 points, which made no difference. With the win, Nebraska takes the Big Ten regular season title.
With the meet finishing just after 6, I had plenty of time to walk over to the basketball game. You can read all about it in the next post.
Notes
Between Covelli Center and the Schottenstein Center (where basketball is played) is the Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, which is used for track and soccer. There is a statue of Owens at the southwest corner and a historical marker near the main entrance. Owens went here before his famous 1936 Olympic accomplishments and this venue is beautiful from the outside. Sadly, I doubt I will ever get inside, but it is still nice to see the exterior.
Best,
Sean
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