On Friday, Jan. 31, the Illinois Fighting Illini will host the Iowa Hawkeyes at Huff Hall in Champaign, Ill. for the annual Pink Meet to raise breast cancer awareness. 

Both teams are coming off of conference losses. Illinois lost in Minneapolis, Minn. to the No. 14 Golden Gophers after an uncharacteristic performance on their best event, the balance beam. Iowa suffered a home loss to No. 8 Nebraska despite posting their second-best 2014 score, 193.250.


Emily Lennon and Erin Buchanan (Fighting Illini Gymnastics)

Expect to see many new faces and underclassmen featured in this matchup, as Illinois has five freshmen while Iowa has seven. Illinois has Erin Buchanan, a recent Big Ten Freshman of the Week who has brought big scores on floor, and Canadian elite Emily Lennon, who brings elite style to the Illini's beam lineup as well as a difficult vault. For Iowa, their freshmen are vital to their vault lineup as they make up majority of it.

Although there are many newcomers on both teams, there are also sophomores and upperclassmen to keep an eye on. The Big Ten Conference named Hawkeyes Alie Glover and Sydney Hoerr and Illini Gianna O'Connor and Amber See to their Gymnasts to Watch list.

Glover is a former Big Ten Freshman of the Week and competed in the all-around in every meet last season as a freshman. Hawkeye junior Hoerr competed all-around 10 times last season and posted a new career best of 39.400, which was also the team's season high. 

Both O'Connor and See are former Big Ten Freshman of the Week honorees and the only Illini to ever earn it twice in a season. O'Connor competed in the all-around in every meet last season, but she recently won her first all-around title against Centenary and Wisconsin-Eau Claire in this season's home opener.

After competing all-around only four times in 2013, See has returned to Illinois and has since competed as a consistent all-around gymnast. She has competed on all four events so far this season and has even posted a new career high of 39.350.

In terms of events, Illinois's beam lineup is one of the best. Illinois was ranked No. 2 in the nation for the first three weeks of competition (first behind Oklahoma, then Florida) until last week's beam mishap. Despite their mistakes from last week, expect the Illini beam team to bounce back and move back up in the beam rankings.

Although this is a gymnastics meet, and the main attraction is the gymnastics itself, it is a Pink Meet. This hits close to home to many, including Illini freshman Buchanan. Read more about that here.

Follow more coverage of Friday's Iowa at Illinois Pink Meet right here on Gymnastike.