How the Sooners stole the show at the NCAA gymnastics championships

Saturday's NCAA gymnastics team final in Fort Worth, Texas, was expected to come down to the wire, and it did. After two events, Alabama led Oklahoma 98.700-98.675 -- an indiscernible margin. Entering the last rotation, any of the top four teams could win. The spread between Oklahoma, in first, and Florida, in fourth, was only .200.

That's one toe that's not pointed and one step on a dismount.

But when all was done, No. 1 Oklahoma held onto the top spot and earned the Sooners' first solo national title in school history. (Oklahoma and Florida shared the championship in 2014).

Few could argue that they are the best team in the country at a time when NCAA gymnastics has many powerful programs. What makes the Sooners so good? Here's six reasons they won in Fort Worth:

They learned from last year. At the 2015 Super Six team final, the top-ranked Sooners were deflated after early mistakes on bars, and more mistakes soon followed. This year, they didn't let a relatively rough start on vault turn into a bad meet. "Vault was not what we are capable of but instead of letting it break them down, they came back stronger and fought on bars, beam and floor all the way to the end," coach K.J. Kindler said.

And they'd lost this year. The Sooners were ranked first for the entire 2015 season and came into NCAA championships undefeated. The pressure was almost unbearable. But this year was different. They lost in the very first meet of the season to LSU. "To me that was a table-turner," Kindler said, "Last year we had the burden of an undefeated season on our shoulders and I felt like it was lifted immediately. I always feel like you grow from failure and I thought our team handled that loss well and decided they did not want to do that again."

They don't have any weak events, or weak scores in the lineup. Many teams have the stars and the table-setters -- those gymnasts who set up the others for the big scores. But Oklahoma has one of the most complete teams on the floor in any meet. On Saturday night they had no score lower than 9.775. They are consistently very, very good, and often spectacular, because...

They are also the most technically precise team in the country. NCAA gymnastics is all about execution, because just about every routine has enough difficulty to start from a 10.0. And Oklahoma's execution -- the form, the presentation, the height of their skills -- is the best. The team spends a lot of time on the details, and the result is gorgeous gymnastics.

The gymnasts really like each other. "This group in particular has a little extra something when it comes to their chemistry that I can't really describe, and I always believe that chemistry wins championships," Kindler said. "They are certainly technically good and they certainly executed well but I really feel that heart and that chemistry put them over the top at the end."

They brought down the house on floor. The Sooners were lucky to end their meet on floor, because they have arguably the best floor lineup in the country. They have beautiful dancers, and they have powerful tumblers -- and every one of their floor workers can do both. It's a show.

After A.J. Jackson rocked her floor routine to the tune of 9.9125, Oklahoma had clinched the title. But senior Haley Scaman still had to perform. "In the beginning of my dance ... I saw Keeley [Kmieciak] sobbing, and I kind of had a feeling we won then," she said, "I knew I had to stay focused. I wanted to finish with a bang on my last floor routine of my career." She earned a 9.95, the highest score of the day.

And the Sooners had the highest team total on floor as well, which sealed their victory, by .225, over LSU. The equivalent of a step and an unpointed toe -- but there were so many other factors along the way.