With a strong performance over No. 9 Iowa, the men’s gymnastics team could potentially become the top team in the nation when the newest poll comes out later today.

Illinois is currently the No.1 team in the country and with the second-ranked Wolverines' score on Saturday in Iowa City, a move up in the rankings is possible. Michigan’s score of 352.50 points was 12 points higher than Iowa in the meet.

“I think we closed the meet out strong enough to move up to number one,” senior Kent Caldwell said. “Looking at scores from around the country it seems like we put up good enough scores to move up.”

Leading the way for Michigan, along with Caldwell who won the vault, was junior Thomas Kelley and redshirt sophomore Devan Cote. Kelley was the all-around winner of the competition. Cote won his first event title of the season with a career-best parallel bar performance.

The one that stands out the most – he added a new dismount and that’s a difficult thing to do – is Devin Cote,” Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. “I was handling a high bar enquiry while he was doing his routine and all I saw was his dismount. Reports were that everybody said he did a great routine, so I would say that’s the performance of the day.”

Other notable performances were by junior Ian Makowske, who tied for second in the floor exercise, and senior David Chan who placed second in the pommel horse.

Even though the Wolverines were victorious, they were not without error. With miscues in the floor exercise from some of his teammates, junior Chris Cameron was able to rise to step up and win the event.

“I think we did pretty well,” Golder said. “Sometimes it's tough to travel and then have a good competition. This was a long bus ride and the kids did pretty darn well.”

Facing two teams ranked in the top 10, Penn State and Iowa, six days apart has proven Michigan as a contender.

“I think we have a pretty tough meet schedule,” Caldwell said. “It’s good to go against really strong opponents because it really pushes you to do as well as you can each meet and keep setting the standard high.”

Some members of the Michigan team will be traveling to Las Vegas on Feb. 4 for the 2010 Winter Cup Challenge, a prestigious nationwide event. With non-conference meets against Oklahoma and Stanford also coming next month, the Wolverines will need to rise up to the occasion— and to their possible No. 1 billing.

“We have to get so we're just as good on the road as we are at home, and we were pretty close to that tonight,” Golder said. “When you’re Michigan, in every sport, when you walk in the arena, you have a target on your back. The higher you get ranked the bigger the target gets. I think we’re going to see everyone gunning for us.”