After being overthrown in 2025, Stanford has reclaimed its glory at the top of the NCAA men’s gymnastics mountain.
With a final score of 329.825, the Cardinals won their 11th NCAA men’s gymnastics title, taking first in their sixth championship in the last eight years.
Stanford won the championship as the competition returned to State Farm Center after seven years. As Stanford senior Asher Hong landed from the rings, the Cardinal corner could not contain their excitement.
“We are always trying to improve the team’s culture,” said Stanford head coach Thom Glielmi. “It is difficult to get and easy to lose that team culture. It was great to see them embrace it and bring it back.”
12 teams were invited to State Farm Center to compete throughout the weekend.
Here is how the weekend went down.
Qualifiers Session 1
Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, Cal, Greenville and Springfield took the mats for the first part of Qualifying on Friday.
No. 1 Oklahoma started strong with the vault to grab a 56.498 at the end of the first rotation. But the team was not out of the clear just yet, as No. 4 Nebraska scored just enough on the floor and No. 5 Ohio State did just enough on the parallel bars to keep them within single digits of the Sooners at the end of the first rotation.
In the second rotation, No. 12 Springfield jumped into the championship mix with their floor routine, grabbing the top spot momentarily. Springfield gained some ground in the vault event, which put them in the top three for the majority of the rotation momentarily.
Oklahoma continued to hold first place, with Freshman Nathan Roman scoring a strong 14.366. With a solid performance on the floor, Nebraska was able to jump back into second, only trailing by three points.
The third rotation saw Ohio State start regaining some ground in the standings. Senior Jacob Harmon scored 13.366 on the floor, and Sophomore Chase Davenport-Mills scored the highest score of the session (13.966), which boosted the Buckeyes back into the top three.
As the afternoon continued, Nebraska had a strong showing on the vault, bringing the Cornhuskers into first place heading into the final two rotations. As the final rotation concluded, Nebraska dropped to 3rd place while Ohio State snuck into second by 0.235 points.
At the end of the first qualifiers, Oklahoma (322.825), Ohio State (320.294), and Nebraska (320.059) secured the top three spots and clinched their place in the national championship.
Qualifiers Session 2
As the first set of teams walked off, the defending champions, Michigan, took the stage Friday night. Alongside them were Stanford, Penn State, Illinois, Navy, and Army, who began warming up for their qualifying session.
In the first rotation, No. 3 Stanford started strong as they took advantage of starting off with the vault event. Accumulating over 56 points put them in the lead at the end of the stint.
No. 2 Michigan began at the parallel bars, which put them two points behind the Cardinals. No. 7 Illinois, the home team, started on the rings, and junior Prestan Ngai helped Illinois get the final third spot.
During the second rotation, Michigan tried to close the gap between Stanford in the horizontal bar event, but Stanford continued to keep a two-point lead with their performance on the parallel bars. Illinois slowly crept its way to Michigan with a 55.366 point performance on the vault.
At the end of the third rotation, the standings stood the same, but the gap between Stanford and Michigan started to grow by 2.4 points. The Illini shrank the gap to 0.731, putting themselves in striking distance of second place.
As the top three teams continued to fight it out, the bottom three teams separated from the pack as the gap between third and fourth place increased to seven points.
Just as Illinois was finding momentum, a mistimed dismount by Sam Philips on the horizontal bar resulted in him falling flat on his back during his turn. Philips was able to finish his routine and keep Illinois in third place, but the Illini’s lead against Penn State shrank from seven points to 2.33 heading into the final two rotations.
The final two rotations saw the standings stay the same as Stanford (327.992) took first place in the session, followed by Michigan (324.623) and Illinois (319.658). These top three teams advanced to the championship and finalized Sunday evening’s final matchups.
Championship Saturday
As the national anthem rang through State Farm Center, the final six teams lined up for the final rotation of events for the season.
After the end of the first rotation, Stanford took advantage of being assigned the vault event first. As the Cardinals claimed first position, the Cornhuskers and Sooners scored 55 points to round out the top three.
Illinois missed out on the top three after scoring 53.5 in the rings event. In the second rotation, two Illinois athletes scored 14 points in the vault, which kept them narrowly ahead of Michigan by 0.001.
Stanford continued to have a strong performance on parallel bars, staying at No. 1. But Oklahoma jumped in front of Nebraska to get within three points of first place.
As the championship meet progressed, Illinois slipped into 5th place after low scores in the parallel and horizontal bars.
Along with Illinois, Oklahoma found itself outside of the top three as Nebraska put on a strong performance on the vault. The constant switches on the podium allowed Stanford to increase their gap to over four points.
Heading into the final rotations, the championship became a two-way competition between Stanford and Oklahoma, with the Sooners on the vault and the Cardinals on the rings.
Oklahoma put on a strong performance, scoring the highest of all six teams on vault (56.666), but Stanford senior Asher Hong scored a 14.3, clinching the program’s 11th NCAA title.
“It was definitely a little anxiety for the whole team, but we know we did our job,” said Hong. “We went out here and did our gymnastics … we did our job, and we would have been happy with any type of result.”
As the teams celebrated their accomplishments, those who scored the highest in each event received individual awards. Illinois junior Brandon Dang took home his first-ever NCAA championship, securing first place in Pommel Horse. Dang explained what his mindset was heading into his championship-winning routine.
“I had a pretty good score yesterday, so just trying to keep everything the same and not try to put too much mental weight on the specifics,” said Dang.
Illinois head coach Daniel Ribiero said Dang was watching intently throughout the night and adjusting to what he saw. Ribiero added that based on what Dang saw, he made the decision to take the risk to switch up his skillset, which put him at the top of the leaderboard.
Lights Out
The arena began to empty out and the lights began to dim as the championship came to an end at State Farm Center. Ribiero expressed his gratitude for being able to host the highest collegiate competition in Champaign.
“It is everything, even the administration putting in the bid for this, so we can have this opportunity,” said Ribiero. “To have the support and to have family come back is something truly, truly special.