BATON ROUGE — LSU gymnastics coach D-D Breaux hopes it will be d?j? vu all over again on Friday night, when her 10th-ranked Tigers host No. 1 ranked Utah at 7 p.m. in the Maravich Assembly Center.
Two years ago Utah came to the Assembly Center ranked No. 1 in the nation and left on the downside of a 195.125-194.800 decision to the Tigers, Breaux’s first win over a top-ranked opponent.
“What happened two years ago won’t help us, except in the sense that for the girls from our squad who were there that night, we know it can be done,” said Breaux. “Utah is a fantastic team and we know we’ll have to be at our best. We’ll need four strong rotations like we had against Auburn two weeks ago, nothing less.”
LSU enters the competition ranked in the top five in the nation in both the vault and floor, ranking fourth and fifth respectively in each event. It may be bars and beam that hold the Tigers’ fate on Friday, however.
A week after scoring a season-high 49.450 on bars against Auburn, the Tigers dropped to a 47.875 at Florida last weekend. If the Tigers are to challenge a Utah squad that leads the nation on bars, beam and floor, they will have to demonstrate the consistency they did two weeks ago when they scored a season-high 196.200 in a victory over Auburn.
“We’ve shown that when we put it together, we’re as good as anyone in the nation,” added Breaux. “We’ve also shown that when we don’t execute, we can be pretty average. I’m hopeful that competing at home, we’ll open up comfortably on vault and then settle in to a rhythm on bars and beam, then bring it home on floor.”
The floor exercise figures to be a tremendous competition with the nation’s top two athletes at the moment. Utah junior Theresa Kulikowski, a U.S. Olympic alternate in 1996, leads the nation while LSU’s Nicki Arnstad ranks second and has won three straight floor titles to open the season, including a 10.0 at the Super Six Challenge on Jan. 11.
Following the Tigers’ showdown with the Utes, the road gets no easier, as No. 5 Alabama comes to the Assembly Center next Friday. The following weekend, LSU travels to No. 15 Denver.