Men Face Top-10 Clash at Iowa

No. 4 Oklahoma at No. 10 Iowa
Date	Saturday, Feb. 16 at 2 p.m. (CT)
Location	Iowa City, Iowa \| UI Field House
Online	Live Scoring

NORMAN, Okla. - The fourth-ranked Oklahoma men's gymnastics team begins a three meet road trip Saturday when it visits No. 10 Iowa. The top-10 clash is slated for a 2 p.m. start at the Field House on the Iowa campus.

Saturday's event marks the return to NCAA competition for Oklahoma, after five members of the squad competed in the 2008 Winter Cup Challenge, a USA Gymnastics re-ranking event, Feb. 7-9 in Las Vegas, Nev.

Oklahoma's last collegiate competition was a record-breaking one. The Sooners defeated MPSF rival Nebraska in Norman on Feb. 1, posting a season-high team score of 355.500. OU also set season bests on floor (60.250), pommel horse (55.850), rings (60.800) and vault (63.200), while nine Sooners recorded individual season highs.

The matchup with Iowa should provide OU head coach Mark Williams the chance to better gauge what his lineup will be as the postseason approaches. Among the additions to the OU arsenal, senior co-captain Jonathan Horton will likely compete on the floor exercise and vault for the first time this season. Horton is the reigning NCAA floor champion and was earned All-America honors on both events in 2007. A strong candidate for a spot on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team, Horton has gradually increased his competitive work load following a busy summer and fall on the international gymnastics scene.

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Notes

Even without Horton, Oklahoma has boasted two of the best floor and vault lineups in the country. The Sooners are second on vault and fourth on the floor in the Feb. 11 GymInfo rankings. Several of OU's underclassmen have led the way through the first four meets of the season. Freshman Steven Legendre, a two-time MPSF Gymnast of the Week honoree already this season, ranks fourth in the country on floor with an average score of 15.212. Sophomore Ian Jackson, who claimed the all-around title in the Sooners' Feb. 1 win over Nebraska, is tied for fourth in the nation on vault, averaging a score of 15.875.

The Hawkeyes are 4-9 all-time against the Sooners. In last year's matchup between the teams, OU swept all six events en route to a 220.500-209.800 victory in Norman on March 17.

Iowa is led by head coach Tom Dunn, who is in his 29th year with the Hawkeye program. Senior Jacob Becker and junior Geoff Reins, both 2007 All-Americans, anchor an Iowa squad that finished ninth at the 2007 NCAA Championships.

Men's Gymnastics Notes

Coming up next...
After visiting No. 10 Iowa on Feb. 16, Oklahoma stays on the road for its next two meets. The fourth-ranked Sooners make their annual trip to Oakland, Calif., for the Pacific Coast Classic on Feb. 23, before visiting rival Ohio State on March 8.

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Stats masters
When your team is ranked fourth in the nation, it's fair to say that you have a team full of solid individual performers. The GymInfo individual event rankings seem to back up that statement.

In the latest rankings released on Feb. 11, Oklahoma gymnasts accounted for 23 top-20 event rankings. The Sooners lead all teams with five top-20 gymnasts on both vault and parallel bars, while OU's four top-20 high bar competitors is also tops in the nation.

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Record day
Not only did Oklahoma post a season-high score of 355.500 in its Feb. 1 victory over Nebraska, it set some records in the process. A a result of the new scoring system in place for 2008, every season high score also establishes a school record. Against the Huskers, OU recorded new program marks on the floor exercise (60.250), pommel horse (55.850), still rings (60.800) and vault (63.200), in addition to its final total.

Oklahoma also had nine individual gymnasts set or match a combined total of 24 season and career highs against Nebraska. Junior Jason Laughton set a new OU record on the pommel horse with a 14.350, while Jonathan Horton tied his school record on rings with a 15.750.

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Men land 10 on Big 12 honor roll
Ten members of the men's gymnastics team earned spots on the Big 12 Commissioners's Honor Roll for the Fall 2007 term. Junior health and exercise science major Russell Czeschin was one of 37 OU student-athletes to earn a perfect 4.0 grade point average. The other Sooner honorees were Chris Brooks, Brian Carr, Corey English, C.J. Grimes, Jason Laughton, Steven Legendre, Reed Pitts, Bobby Shortle and Joseph Weaver.

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Winter Cup highlights
Five OU gymnasts competed in the 2008 Winter Cup Challenge in Las Vegas, and all five advanced to the finals competition. Highlighting the Sooners' weekend in the desert were third-place performances by Jonathan Horton on rings and Steven Legendre on floor exercise. Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons tied for fifth on rings, while Ian Jackson made it to the event finals on rings and pommel horse in his Winter Cup debut.

Perhaps the most balanced performance, however, came from Jacob Messina, another Winter Cup newcomer. The Matthews, N.C., native was the only Sooner to finish in the top 20 on every event in which he competed (PH, SR, HB).

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Horton vying for third-straight Tyson Cup
Two-time defending Tyson American Cup champion Jonathan Horton will try to make it three-in-a-row at the 2008 event scheduled for March 1 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Horton could become the first man to win three consecutive American Cup titles since the USA's Blaine Wilson (1997-1999).

Impact Performer

Jason Laughton | Jr. | PH, SR, PB, HB
Laughton has made the leap from role player to impact performer in his junior season. The Northridge, Calif., native set personal bests on pommel horse, rings and parallel bars in the Sooners' Feb. 1 home win against Nebraska.

Laughton also owns team season-highs on pommel horse (14.350) and high bar (15.000) and is currently ranked 16th in the nation on h-bar with a 14.312 average.

Hall of Fame nominates Horton for Gymnast of the Year
Oklahoma's Jonathan Horton is one of seven nominees for the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame 2007 Gymnast of the Year Award. The OU senior won a his second consecutive Tyson American Cup and finished fourth in the all-around at the World Championships last year.

The other nominees are: Fabian Hambüchen (Germany), Jade Barbosa (Brazil), Cheng Fei (China), Hisashi Mizutori (Japan), Shawn Johnson (USA), Mitja Petkovsek (Slovenia), Nastia Liukin (USA), Yang Wei (China) and Steliana Nistor (Romania).

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All-around good guy
Sophomore Ian Jackson claimed the all-around title in OU's Feb. 1 win over Nebraska in his first appearance of the season on all six events this season. Jackson posted an 85.400 to best teammate Kyle McNamara (84.900) and Nebraska's Stephen Tetrault. Jackson also took home the title the last time he competed in the all-around, Feb. 16, 2007 against club teams from the universities of Washington and Texas.

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Abdullah-Simmons featured on ESPN.com
Though he didn't know it at the time, OU senior Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons' all-around victory at the 2007 NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships was a historic one.

Not only did the Philadelphia, Pa., native become the second consecutive Oklahoma gymnast to win the all-around crown, he became the first African-American in the history of the sport to achieve the feat.

In honor of Black History Month, ESPN.com is featuring the athletes and events that have helped shape the world of sports.

On Feb. 4, writer Jay Weiner highlighted Abdullah-Simmons' pioneering victory and chronicled his path to stardom at the University of Oklahoma. Click here to read full article...

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Sooners hogging conference honors
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has awarded Gymnast of the Week honors five times in 2008, and three times the award has gone to a University of Oklahoma gymnast.

Steven Legendre was the conference's first honoree of the season after winning the all-around and floor exercise titles at the Rocky Mountain Open on Jan. 12. The freshman from Port Jefferson, N.Y., earned the distinction again on Jan. 28 after claiming his third consecutive all-around and floor exercise crowns in the Sooners' Jan. 26 upset of then-No. 2 Michigan in Norman.

Jonathan Horton, a two-time MPSF Gymnast of the Year and three-time weekly award winner in 2007, earned his first conference award of the season on Feb. 11 following his performance at the Winter Cup Challenge where he finished third on rings and maintained his spot in the U.S. Senior National Team.

Last season, four different OU gymnasts accounted for a total of six MPSF weekly honors.

2008 MPSF Gymnasts of the Week
Jan. 15 - Steven Legendre, Oklahoma
Jan. 12 - Kyson Buntwong, California
Jan. 28 - Steven Legendre, Oklahoma
Feb. 4 - Greg Stine, Air Force
Feb. 11 - Jonathan Horton, Oklahoma

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Leading by example
The coaching success of Oklahoma's staff is well-documented. Head coach Mark Williams is a four-time national Coach of the Year and seven-time MPSF Coach of the Year, while assistants Rustam Sharipov and Daniel Furney were national Co-Assistant Coaches of the Year in 2006. Oklahoma's coaches, however, boast their fair share of competitive successes as well.

During his collegiate career at Nebraska, Williams earned All-America honors on high bar in 1978 after winning the Big Eight title on the apparatus. Williams was also a member of two Husker national title teams in 1979 and 1980.

Sharipov, a former parallel bars specialist, took the gold medal on the event at the 1996 Olympics and also won top honors on the apparatus at both the 1996 World and European Championships as well. Sharipov garnered another Olympic gold medal as a member of the Unified Team in 1992.

Furney, a 2004 OU graduate, was a member of two national championship teams in Norman (2002 and 2003). Furney also won the Nissen Emery Award in 2003 after claiming NCAA titles in the all-around and on parallel bars. During his OU career, Furney accumulated nine All-America honors, including four during the 2003 season.

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The upset is an upset
OU's upset of then-No. 2 Michigan on Jan. 26 was an upset in itself. The Sooners, ranked sixth this week and fifth when they knocked off the Wolverines, rarely have the opportunity to beat an opponent ranked higher than they are.

In fact, prior to this year's win against Michigan, the last time OU scored an upset was at the 2007 Pacific Coast Classic. The Sooners, ranked third at the time, won the event defeating five of the nation's top five teams including ... No. 1 Michigan.

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A note on the rankings
The GymInfo rankings are based on the following criteria:

Jan. 21 - February 11: Ranking by Total Season Average (average of all scores)

February 18 - March 17: Ranking by Three Score Average

March 24 - 31: Ranking by Modified Three Score Average (Select the four highest scores, counting no more than two home meet, and drop the highest score. Average the three remaining scores.)

April 7: Ranking by National Qualifying Average

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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