Big Ten Championships on Saturday
3/15/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
March 15, 2016
• Social Media: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Vine
THIS WEEK
Saturday, March 19 -- at Big Ten Championships (Lincoln, Neb.), 4 p.m. CDT
TV: Big Ten Network | BTN2Go | Live Scoring | Championship Central
The No. 7-ranked University Michigan women's gymnastics team (11-6, 6-3 Big Ten) will begin postseason competition on Saturday (March 19) at 4 p.m. CDT with the Big Ten Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska.
THINGS TO KNOW
• Michigan has won 21 Big Ten Championships and two regular-season titles. The 21 Big Ten championships are the most of any conference institution, with Ohio State and Minnesota tying for second most with five each.
• Bev Plocki has led Michigan to 20 of those 21 titles as she has the most of any coach in the conference.
• U-M has won the Big Ten Championships each of the last two years and had a stretch of 18 of 20 years with a title from 1992-2011.
• U-M has claimed 84 individual Big Ten titles, more than double any other school. Minnesota has the second most with 35, followed by Penn State with 23. Last year, the all-around, bars, beam and floor were won outright or shared titles for the Wolverines.
• The rotation order for Michigan at the Big Ten Championships will be vault, bye, bars, beam, bye, floor.
• Six U-M gymnasts were named to the All-Big Ten first team on Monday. It is three more first team selections than any other school and the most first team selections for Michigan since 2002. Honored were Nicole Artz (3), Brianna Brown (2), Talia Chiarelli (2), Austin Sheppard (2), Olivia Karas (1) and Lindsay Williams (1).
• Michigan's team scoring average of 196.900 is currently the third best in school history behind 2015 (197.123) and 2013 (196.998). The individual event averages rank among the all-time best at U-M as well: vault (5th), bars (2nd), beam (4th) and floor (1st).
• Freshman Olivia Karas was the Big Ten Freshman of the Week a school-record nine times this season. She has posted 20 scores of 9.900 or better and won the all-around four times.
• Senior Austin Sheppard has hit on all 21 of her routines in 2016.
• Sophomore Brianna Brown had a season-high 9.925 to tie for the bars title last week.
