COLUMBIA, Mo. - The Mizzou gymnastics team is ranked No. 23 in the latest GymInfo Rankings released on Monday, the Tigers' first in-season top-25 ranking since 2012. Missouri jumped up seven spots from last week as the rankings moved from average team score to Regional Qualifying Score (RQS).
Missouri sat No. 30 last week based on team average but shot past seven teams on Monday when the RQS was implemented, with the Tigers overtaking Southeastern Conference foe Kentucky, Ohio State, Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan State, New Hampshire and George Washington.
The RQS is used to determine which 36 schools will qualify for the NCAA Women's Gymnastics Regionals on April 4. Qualification for regional competition is based on a team's six best regular season meet scores, three of which must be away. To calculate the RQS, the team's highest score is dropped and the five remaining scores are then averaged.
All eight of the Southeastern Conference gymnastics programs are ranked among the top-25 this week, led by No. 2 LSU (197.335), No. 3 Florida (197.270), No. 5 Alabama (197.055), No. 7 Auburn (196.610) and No. 9 Georgia (196.525) in the top-10. Arkansas (195.82) clocks in at No. 17, Mizzou 23rd (195.315) and Kentucky (195.275) is 25th.
Mizzou's improvement under second-year head coach Shannon Welker is evident in the squad's rise in the rankings. The team's ranking the last two weeks, as the No. 30 rankings from last Monday was also higher than anything the team accomplished in 2013 and 2014.
Additionally, Missouri ranks 20th nationally on vault in the latest event rankings, boasting an RQS of 49.030.
The Tigers return to action on Friday, Feb. 27 at No. 17 Arkansas at 7 p.m. CT. The meet will be streamed live on SEC Network + and aired on tape delay on the SEC Network on Monday, March 2 at 6 p.m. CT.