Beating Georgia not quite enough to satisfy Marsden

In last Friday's upset victory over then-No. 1-ranked, three-time defending NCAA champion Georgia, Utah gymnastics coach Greg Marsden tallied up the points his team gave away just on un-stuck landings in their first three events that evening in the Huntsman Center.

He didn't consider floor exercise, and he didn't count the worst score of each event, the one that didn't count.

The verdict was 1.2 points that the club gave up to happy feet: .4 of a point lost on vault, .3 on beam and .5 on bars.

Guess what one big emphasis is for practice this week. That's "the most glaring place we can significantly improve," Marsden said.

Those kinds of deductions will lose a lot of meets, though this was just the first one, and nearly everybody has some problems in season openers.

"We made a number of little mistakes throughout the meet that cost us," Marsden said. "They (Georgia) made two big ones."

Those were the falls in the last event, beam — by Georgia's Tiffany Tolnay and Courtney Kupets — that allowed Utah to come from behind for the win, 196.3-196.2.

Despite the small and probably correctable errors, Marsden was happy to see his team be able to fight back to a point where it could take advantage of Georgia's two late mistakes after a 2007 season that saw the Utes have one terrible event per meet until the postseason.

"It just seemed like last year that every time we were in a close meet like that, we found a way to not win the meet," Marsden said, "usually because we did something really dramatic to take ourselves completely out of it.

"It was fun to be in a situation," he said, adding the Utes know they won because Georgia faltered. "But early in the meet, we had a couple rough bar routines that really got us behind, and it was fun to see the girls fight back and not give up and really continue in the same kind of mindset that they did in last year's championships."

Marsden even sees a reason for it.

"I think we're much more of a team this year going into the season," he said. "I think the girls have done a much better job of preparing for the season. I think they're more confident, and they're happier, and the happier part of it can't be under-emphasized. When you enjoy what you're doing, typically, you're going to be much better at it."