There’s no “I” in “together,” and the No. 3 LSU gymnastics team is set to burst at 5 p.m.
Saturday on Verizon Arena’s podium stage in Little Rock, Arkansas.
“There’s no ‘I’ in this team. It’s about doing it together,” LSU coach D-D Breaux said. “This team is locked and loaded and ready to go to SEC’s and explode on the scene.”
The Tigers (13-2, 6-1 Southeastern Conference) are coming off four consecutive team scores of 197.825 or more, much like the hot streak the Tigers were on before the conference championship meet last season, when they headed into the same competition on a six-meet win streak.
But this team is different, Breaux and sophomore all-arounder Myia Hambrick said.
LSU finished in second place in last year’s meet in Duluth, Georgia, as Alabama snuck past the Tigers in the final rotation with a higher event score, bumping LSU into the runner-up spot.
The Tigers will be facing a similar grouping in 2016 against No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Alabama and No. 6 Auburn on Saturday, all of which the Tigers defeated earlier this season.
To Hambrick, the previous wins add an ingredient of excitement on the conference’s biggest stage.
“We’ve beaten everyone except for Georgia this year,” Hambrick said. “Everyone we’ve beaten we will be competing against, and that builds confidence for us, but for them they’ll be like, ‘Oh, you’ve already beaten us once,’ so they’ll bring their A-game, too.”
“Togetherness” and “collectiveness” are mottos for the youthful Tiger squad in 2016 and make this year’s corp different from last season’s.
“This team is a lot more invested in each other just all together,” Hambrick said. “There’s not a whole lot of This is about me. It’s now what we can do as a team and with each other. Now when someone goes up, we have full confidence that they’re going to hit.” Breaux said the Tigers’
difficulty on skills is “the toughest in the nation,” and if LSU embraces how great it could be, winning the conference championship is feasible, Breaux said.
“We tell them, ‘Go get a trophy now,’” Breaux said. “‘Go get what you have earned and worked for. Just be you. Just do what you do in practice.’ If the stars line up and our gymnastics is on that night, we will win it. We’re that good.”
LSU will have had two weeks of practice heading into SEC’s as the Tigers competed in the same rotational order in Denton, Texas, last weekend in a quad-meet — bars, beam, floor then vault.
The Tigers posted a 197.825 as a team in the same order last weekend, which is more than helpful in preparation, Hambrick said.
“That helps a lot,” Hambrick said. “You get used to going in a home and away meet order. You get in the hang of that because you do them both five or six times a year. Not that last week messed us up or anything, but it was kind of weird going from bars to ‘Oh now we’re going to beam.’ It was good practice for sure.”
Unlike last season, Breaux doesn’t expect to make any last minute lineup changes before the meet. She is “sticking with what has worked,” she said.
“I don’t aspire to make any changes,” Breaux said. “I made a mistake making some changes at the end of the season. I want to lock in on what has been successful during our season and in our inter-squads. I want to take all emotion out of it.”
Sophomore all-arounder Erin Macadaeg said the Tiger gymnasts were excited for Saturday’s competition as early as Monday.
Macadaeg and Breaux said winning the SEC’s title is a goal and would mean much to the program, Breaux said.
“It would set the table for us going into the national championships,” Breaux said. “It would mean so much. That’s what this team has aspired to do. Hoisting that trophy up and bringing it back to LSU would be anincredible feeling.”