TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The NCAA Central Regional champion LSU gymnastics team worked out for just under two hours on Wednesday at the Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa in their final tune-up before the NCAA Championships.
The Tigers begin competition in the afternoon session on Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. in a bracket with Georgia, Utah, Michigan, Nebraska and Arizona.
The top three teams from the afternoon session will join the top three teams from tomorrow’s evening session for the Super Six on Friday night at 7 p.m. LSU will be looking to make its first Super Six appearance.
LSU will open on bars and follow on beam. After a bye the Tigers will return to floor, then vault and then finish the competition in their second bye.
“It’s going to take a near flawless effort for us on Thursday,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “I like the fact that we open on bars and then go to beam. It’s the same exact rotation we had at regionals and it worked out terrific for us. If we hit and get through those two events without counting a fall, we’ll have tremendous confidence closing the competition out with two events we feel we’re very strong at.”
LSU will have its work cut out on Thursday, as in its postseason history it has a winning record against only Nebraska and Arizona.
The Tigers faced only Georgia and Utah during the regular season and were 0-3 against the GymDogs, while they were 1-0 against the Utes and upset them when they came to Baton Rouge with the No. 1 ranking.
Thursday evening’s 7 p.m. session will pit host-Alabama, Florida, UCLA, Minnesota, Oregon State and Stanford.
The Tigers are making their first NCAA appearance since qualifying for the Championships in Boise, Idaho in 2000. The Tigers finished ninth that year and have finished ninth in each of their last three NCAA Championships. The Tigers are making their fifth appearance in six years.
The highest the Tigers have ever finished was a fourth place finish in 1988 before the Super Six format came into play. LSU will hope to use its depth across the board on Thursday to reach its first Super Six.
“We may be the only team at this meet that is actually using all 15 of its athletes,” added Breaux. “I think we’re fortunate to have the ability to spread out events like we can. We only have one person competing in the all-around because we have the kind of depth where we can have a person who specializes in one or maybe two events step in.”
The NCAA Championship appearance is LSU’s 14th.