This time of year is an LSU sports fan’s dream.

LSU football’s spring game is less than two weeks away, and the baseball and softball teams are hitting the midway point of the Southeastern Conference schedule.

But there’s something missing in that LSU sports description: the LSU gymnastics team.

Don’t get me wrong — LSU Gymnastics has its share of loyal followers. But it doesn’t get the recognition a top-10 collegiate athletic team in the country warrants.

Lost in the Final Four action from Saturday night, the Tigers captured the NCAA Columbus Regional with a score of 197.275, punching their ticket to the NCAA Championships this weekend in Los Angeles.

LSU returns to the NCAA Championships for the 24th time in school history. 

Twelve teams compete annually in the NCAA Championships. Fans and the media laud college basketball coaches for making the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament every year. LSU coach D-D Breaux has done the gymnastics equivalent 24 times in her 35-year career at the helm of the Tigers.

Think about that for a second. Coach D-D Breaux didn’t just build this program overnight — she’s been here from the start. 

If you asked a random LSU fan who the school’s longest-tenured head coach was, you might get responses like track and field coach Dennis Shaver or volleyball coach Fran Flory. And they would be wrong  — it’s Breaux.

When men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones was introduced last year, he mentioned at his news conference how he remembered Breaux being around as the coach when he was a player in the 1980s.

Breaux and LSU Gymnastics have been a force in Baton Rouge for more than 30 years, and it’s time more people started to take notice.

Sure, the football team has household names like Zach Mettenberger and Jeremy Hill and baseball has Mason Katz and Raph Rhymes, but the gymnastics team isn’t short on star power.

Sophomore Rheagan Courville claimed the SEC Gymnast of the Year title a few weeks ago, which isn’t an uncommon occurrence for the Tigers. An LSU gymnast has won the SEC Gymnast of the Year five of the last 10 seasons. 

This is the first year regular season All-Americans have been selected for NCAA gymnastics, and LSU had three members on the inaugural team: Courville, Lloimincia Hall and Sarie Morrison. No biggie.

LSU gymnastics has a high-profile coach and nationally recognized athletes, and it’s a frequent visitor to the biggest stage of college gymnastics. The Tigers have it all.

So why don’t they have a cult following like football and baseball? Your guess is as good as mine.

After the Summer Olympics in London this past summer, everyone just assumed because the “Fab Five” took over the games that gymnastics was going to catch fire in the United States. Well, it hasn’t.

There just isn’t the exposure needed for it to gain traction. A majority of the gymnastic events were shown in primetime on NBC, which is why everyone was glued to the TV to watch every vault McKayla Maroney landed and every floor exercise Gabby Douglas aced.

While the five gymnasts who competed for the U.S were overnight celebrities, LSU has a first-team All-American on vault in Courville and a first-team All-American on floor exercise in Hall.

These women are good.

People are drooling over the No. 3 LSU baseball team’s winning streak, and rightfully so. But this weekend, don’t hesitate to check in on how the LSU gymnastics team is doing in the NCAA Championships.

They deserve it.

Micah Bedard is a 22-year-old history senior from Houma.