After ending the regular season with a win against Arkansas, the back-to-back defending SEC champions will return to the conference tournament looking to protect their crown and take down the other top-three teams in the nation.
Saturday’s postseason kickoff will see No. 2 LSU gymnastics a part of Session II of the championship, facing No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 3 Florida and No. 4 Alabama in a competition that will certainly be a fight to the end.
“We’re all getting on a neutral floor with four judge panels,” head coach Jay Clark said. “We’ll see how everybody performs. But if everybody performs what the numbers say they are, man, it’s going to be a barn burner.”
This season has been similar to its predecessors in terms of its road to strong finishes in the conference.
When head coach Jay Clark first took over the program, the Tigers finished second in the meet after a conference-record 4-3. The year after, in 2022, they earned a fifth-place finish due to an unfortunate vault rotation.
Since then, the Tigers have only managed to redefine their last performance again and again.
“There’s so much passion when you’re competing against your conference foes,” Clark said. “The rivalries run deep, and the familiarity runs deep.”
In 2023, program-high event scores at the conference meet paved the way to a third-place finish for the team. In the weeks leading up to the postseason, LSU saw a record of 1-4 on the road but 3-0 on neutral floors, similar to the 2026 season storyline.
In just 12 months’ time, the 2024 season would see the Tigers win their fifth tournament title before eventually winning their first national championship.
Throughout 2024, LSU had only seen a total of three losses against Oklahoma, Missouri and Florida in the regular season. Even so, the postseason told a different story as the Tigers rematched each team on their way to victory with an overall score of 198.075 for the conference title.
In 2025, an even higher score of 198.200 would allow LSU to become back-to-back conference champions, emphasizing its dominating conference record of 7-1.
This historic LSU conference championship score would be characterized by heavy-hitting rotations throughout the entire night. Setting new top-five scores in every event allowed LSU to lead the competition for the meet’s entirety and solidify the program’s sixth championship title.
Now in 2026, the Tigers are headed into the competition supported by the confidence of a 5-0-1 record on a neutral floor.
The Tigers have had exciting clashes with each of the contending teams throughout the season, seeing both Alabama and Oklahoma twice and setting a season-high road score against the Gators.
Despite taking losses to Oklahoma and Florida on the road, the team posted overall totals of 197.925 and 198.325, respectively, and even tied Oklahoma in the first meet of the season. Against the Crimson Tide, LSU has found two wins, one of which matched their overall 2025 conference championship score of 198.200 at the Podium Challenge.
“I like being No. 1 at the end, obviously, but until then, I’m okay chasing something,” Clark said. “I like the mindset that can help produce and just keep pushing because it’s a psychological thing. The expectation is, right now, that somebody else is better, and so we just keep pushing, keep raising our floor and trying to get better.”
Based on the gymnastics LSU has performed throughout the season, there is no question that its stuck landings and high-difficulty can carry them to a possible three-peat for the conference crown.
“We’ve won the last two of these, and we certainly don’t feel like we’re walking in wearing short pants and everybody else is wearing long pants,” Clark said. “We feel good about what we’re doing.”
