Throughout the 2024 season, it felt almost inevitable that LSU would have to get past Oklahoma to get over the top and win the program’s first-ever NCAA championship.
The two sides were only one afternoon away from meeting face-to-face, both looking to punch their ticket to Saturday in the semifinals.
The judges tallied up the final scores as the gymnasts make their way to the center of the floor. The athletes were nervous. Some had been training for a chance to go to a national championship their entire lives.
But of all the teams, none are more nervous collectively than the Sooners.
Oklahoma had spent most of what had become a historic year at No. 1 and the favorite to be the first gymnastics program to three-peat since Georgia’s dominant half-decade run from 2005 to 2009.
Once the scores come in, it was over; the dream of a three-peat is dead.
“It wasn’t as we scripted it, but we take great pride in winning, and we’re going to take great pride in losing,” Sooners head coach K.J. Kindler said. “They fought back hard, and it was emotional, and I give them all the credit for gutting it out through the end.”
It only took one uncharacteristically bad vault rotation to derail Oklahoma’s season of destiny completely.
“They were trying to put everything into it,” Kindler said. “I’m so proud of the way they bounced back. This is an incredible team, and we’ll live to flip another day.”
Meanwhile, LSU, who spent most of their season living in the Sooners’ shadow, went on to advance. Thanks to a clutch-time, championship-clinching beam routine from Aleah Finnegan, the Tigers slayed their demons en route to hanging a banner in the rafters.
Now, the 2024 NCAA championship banner will hang from above as No. 1 Oklahoma, back this season with a vengeance, and No. 2 LSU, the defending national champions, prepare to take the floor together on Friday night.
But the banner is more than a backdrop; it represents how we got here.
In collegiate sports, winning NCAA championships is every program’s goal. By winning a national championship, schools benefit from increased applications, enrollment, financial gain and recruiting prowess– to the victor go the spoils.
The Tigers had been knocking on the door of an NCAA championship for the past decade, with their first second-place finish coming back in 2014.
However, LSU gymnastics was founded in 1975; the program had been searching for a national championship for nearly half a century.
When the Tigers finally got over the hump last year, it placed the program at the top of the list of the country’s top transfers and recruits.
LSU head coach Jay Clark and their coaching staff recruited Kailin Chio and Kaliya Lincoln, two freshmen who have made a significant impact when placed into the lineup this year.
Over the past two weeks of action, Chio has landed back-to-back SEC Freshman of the Week awards to make it her fourth on the season.
“I think just the way she goes about her business inside and outside of the gym is really inspiring, and something that’s really cool to see,” Chio’s fellow Tiger teammate Haleigh Bryant said. “As a freshman, we talk about kind of knowing your process, and I think she knows her process very well.”
Suddenly, Oklahoma’s one vault rotation, the one blemish on its near-perfect season, has set up LSU to stand up to college gymnastics’ latest and greatest dynasty.
“We’re LSU Tigers, and we’re staying here,” Clark said at the team’s championship ceremony last April. “This is just getting started.”
Could the Tigers become the sport’s darling? The program still has a lot of catching up to do, but step one should be beating Oklahoma head-to-head on Friday night.
The PMAC consistently holds one of the world’s loudest gymnastics crowds, with an average of nearly 13,000 fans shoved into the building in 2024, the best number in the nation.
On Friday night, Tiger fans will pack the PMAC with their purple and gold to witness a historic heavyweight fight right in front of their eyes.
In one corner, you have No. 2 LSU, a program looking to prove that last year’s magical run wasn’t just magic and establish themselves as college gymnastics’ team to beat going forward.
Sitting on the opposing side are the visiting No. 1 Sooners, the six-time national champions looking to kill off any hope of a gymnastics dynasty in Baton Rouge before it even begins.
This ranks among the most highly-anticipated matchups in the history of the sport.
“We’re not the six-time national championship team,” Clark said. “We’re the Cinderella story of last year. We’re not the gold standard over the last decade. That’s somebody else right now. So our mindset has to remain the same as it has for the previous couple of years.”
While Clark has acknowledged the meeting of the top two teams in the country, he says that it doesn’t account for his team’s preparation during the week.
“We have to stay focused on what we do,” Clark said. “There’s no defense. There’s not some way we’re going to get up emotionally for this that’s going to give us an advantage over anybody. It’s just not how it works in our sport.”
But nobody can ignore what a No. 1 versus No. 2 showdown means for a growing sport like college gymnastics.
The nation’s two best programs will be shown performing live on national TV, under the lights, on the sport’s biggest stage and in a building known for holding one of the most breathtaking live gymnastics atmospheres on planet Earth.
How could you possibly not appreciate that?
“I think it’s fantastic for college gymnastics,” Clark said. “It’s rare you get an opportunity for a one versus two matchup in any sport during a regular season like this.”
So, on Friday night, ensure you’ve found a place to settle in for all the can’t-miss action.
It’s not very often that a show of this magnitude moseys its way into town.
