The No. 3 LSU gymnastics squad will continue its quest for the program’s first national title when it competes in Semifinal 1 at the NCAA Championships in Birmingham, Ala., the NCAA announced Monday.
The third-seeded Tigers (20-5) will make its first trip to the BJCC Arena since the Southeastern Conference Championships to compete against No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 6 Georgia, No. 7 Michigan, No. 10 Stanford and No. 11 Illinois. Semifinal 1 is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. on April 18.
Six other squads will compete in Semifinal 2, which is slated to begin at 7 p.m. The top three finishers from each semifinal will contend for the national title in the NCAA Super Six on April 19.
The Tigers won’t have to face No. 1 Florida and No. 4 Alabama, the squads that finished above them at SECs, unless all three advance to the Super Six.
But LSU coach D-D Breaux believes everyone is going to be challenged at NCAAs, no matter which semifinal round the teams were placed.
“I think everybody’s got a tough road to get into Super Six,” Breaux said. “I think Oklahoma is going to push us like we’ll push them. And then there’s a rivalry with Georgia. So let’s just get out there and shake it up.”
LSU will compete in an unfamiliar order in the semifinal round. In the past two meets, the Tigers have started on the uneven bars followed by balance beam, but they’ve ended on floor and vault, their strongest two events.
In Semifinal 1, LSU will have a bye in the first rotation and then compete on floor and vault before its second bye. The Tigers will then go to bars and finish the afternoon on beam.
But Breaux doesn’t believe the flip-flop in the rotation order will affect her team’s chances of advancing to the final round because the Tigers should be able to set the tone early by starting on their strongest events.
“We should have a pretty high score [after the first two events],” Breaux said. “We’d like to be at a high 98 when we make the turn to our last two events. We’ll test our depth a little bit, but we’re as good as anybody out there.”