AS CHEERS FILLED the air at Dickie’s Area in Fort Price, Texas, one nook of the ground was uncannily quiet.
A number of minutes — and what felt like a lot, for much longer — handed after UCLA’s Emma Malabuyo caught her beam dismount, the ultimate routine for the Bruins. The eyes of just about everybody within the area have been glued to the scoreboard.
However the gymnasts on the LSU staff already knew what the end result could be. They stood in near-silence by the vault, tears streaming down their faces, exchanging drawn-out hugs with each other.
When Malabuyo’s 9.975 lastly flashed it was official. The Tigers, the No. 1 seed and the defending nationwide champions, have been going residence. UCLA and Utah have been advancing to the NCAA championship finals.
“It was actually heavy and crushing on the time,” LSU affiliate head coach Courtney McCool Griffeth advised ESPN in November. “And that stays with you.”
Finally, the staff was capable of finding perspective and, in line with McCool Griffeth, take the emotion out of it. Now, all these months after that day in April, the Tigers have been in a position to study from the expertise — and let the sting of disappointment make them even higher this season.
“The previous is previously, however I feel it is necessary to mirror on the unhealthy moments that we did have and attempt to study from these moments as a result of that’s necessary,” junior Konnor McClain advised ESPN forward of the season. “You do not wish to repeat what occurred. … However I feel we’re all utilizing it as motivation, even the newcomers and our transfers. … It is like, ‘Okay, how can we be even higher this time round?'”
MCCLAIN AND HER teammates did not waste any time in preparing for 2026.
The Tigers returned to the gymnasium in June, almost seven months earlier than their opening meet on the star-studded Sprouts’ Farmers Market Collegiate Quad on Saturday in opposition to three of the highest 4 groups from final season — Oklahoma, UCLA and Utah (4 p.m. ET, ABC).
Whereas being again within the follow gymnasium was a well-recognized consolation for McClain, the LSU staff has a brand new look total. Six gymnasts graduated on the finish of final season — together with particular person NCAA champions Haleigh Bryant and Aleah Finnegan and fan favourite Olivia Dunne. There have been quite a few new faces to get to know, and McClain did not know what to anticipate at first when she walked into the staff’s first unofficial summer time follow.
“The vitality was 100% totally different,” McClain mentioned. “This staff is so younger, however so humorous. From the second you stroll in, everyone seems to be simply cracking jokes, and it is like that the entire follow. … Once you’re having enjoyable, it simply makes every part simple.”
Since these early periods, the staff has continued to bond, each inside and outdoors of the gymnasium. That they had a weekend retreat at first of the autumn semester in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and held make-your-own dip nights and pumpkin-carving events. McClain mentioned the vibe within the gymnasium has remained upbeat and even downright foolish at occasions because the season quickly approaches.
And the staff ought to as soon as once more problem everybody within the nation. McClain mentioned she is again to full well being after an Achilles tear final yr, and hopes to compete on all 4 occasions this season. She claimed the SEC beam title her freshman yr, and scored three excellent 10s (twice on beam, as soon as on flooring).
Sophomore Kailin Chio was the SEC freshman of the yr in 2025 after an unimaginable debut season and received the NCAA vault title. And junior Amari Drayton, one other former elite gymnast, has been a significant contributor on vault and flooring. Sophomores and fellow former nationwide staff gymnasts Kaliya Lincoln and Lexi Zeiss are anticipated to contribute in a number of lineups, and the staff has excessive hopes for freshmen Nina Ballou, who received 4 flooring nationwide titles on the membership stage, and Haley Mustari, who received 4 nationwide bar titles in membership.
Chio mentioned the closeness of the staff has been a big a part of their preseason focus — and everybody has made it a degree to get to know each other individually. Chio was mentored by Bryant, now an assistant coach on the staff, throughout her first season and is already attempting to return the favor to the brand new group of freshmen.
“I went by a lot throughout my freshman yr, particularly being away from residence, so I do know what it is like,” Chio advised ESPN. “I simply attempt to inform all of them, ‘That is purported to be enjoyable. I do know it is actually arduous, however simply attempt to take pleasure in each second as a result of it does go by quick.'”
Such relationships have been very important to the staff’s success in recent times. After a number of seasons of being a perennial contender, the Tigers received their first NCAA championship title in 2024. It was an unimaginable accomplishment to make sure, and one which was celebrated by the staff and its followers with a victory parade in Baton Rouge. Nevertheless it was enterprise as traditional for these concerned with this system.
The truth is, in an interview with ESPN final yr, head coach Jay Clark mentioned that they had executed “nothing” otherwise forward of the 2025 season.
“The one factor that modifications are the issues that change yr over yr regardless, as a result of you have got personalities and attributes and gymnastics that depart, after which you have got persona and attributes and gymnastics that come, and you need to work out how do you backfill these voids, whether or not it is persona traits or management traits,” Clark mentioned. “It’s important to let every staff develop its personal persona, however the vacation spot is all the time the identical.”
That every one stays true, however the staff did make a slight change this fall. They’ve utilized “accountability companions” for the previous a number of seasons, matching teammates with each other to assist one another all through the season, and this yr the concept has been supercharged into “Tiger Teammates.” Per McCool Griffeth, members of the staff are assigned to a unique companion each month and they’re tasked with attending to know one another and encourage each other as a lot as potential throughout that point. Additionally they created “Motivation Monday,” through which the staff picks a unique phrase for the week and comes up with one thing they’ll do collectively to emphasise the phrase.
Whereas that concept is new, Mondays have all the time been essentially the most essential day of the week for the staff. In the course of the season, it doesn’t matter what has occurred over the weekend — whether or not it is a huge victory or a difficult loss — everybody gathers within the assembly room to mirror on the week that was and set the tone for the one to come back. A pyramid is posted on the wall as a reminder of what the staff determined to make its core values at first of the season. This yr, the phrases, “With one another, for one another” sit on the very backside as the muse for every part else.
“We do it each single week,” McCool Griffeth advised ESPN. “There are such a lot of essential issues we are able to see visually, and listen to and speak about, and the consistency of that’s one thing we imagine in lots.”
And it is not simply rehashing who scored what on which occasion, or usually about scores in any respect. It is often the little issues that carry essentially the most weight.
“We do shout outs within the assembly room, and we hear the issues even [the coaches] do not see,” McCool Griffeth mentioned. “[The gymnasts] will usually share what their teammates have executed, and what they appreciated, and all of the methods they’ve gone out of their manner for each other. We attempt to emphasize that everybody has the power to affect in so some ways, and actually acknowledge what everybody brings to the staff.”
Everybody on the staff was closely recruited and extremely profitable earlier than arriving in Baton Rouge — however with 21 members on the staff this season and with simply six competing on every occasion, not everybody can have the prospect to compete each week. And for some, they hardly ever will crack an occasion lineup all through their 4 years. Even Dunne, a former junior nationwide staff member and arguably essentially the most well-known collegiate gymnast in latest reminiscence, solely constantly made the lineup on one or two occasions throughout her profession. (An damage sidelined her most of her fifth yr in 2025.) It may be a problem for younger gymnasts, used to being the star at their membership, to just accept a unique function.
Even for these, like McClain and Chio, who instantly make an impression of their first season, adjusting to being a part of a staff after years of primarily competing solely as a person can really feel like tradition shock. McClain mentioned she wasn’t totally comfy with the all-for-the-team method till the tip of final season. Her Achilles’ damage paradoxically helped her in that regard as she needed to discover a totally different area of interest for herself when she wasn’t in a position to follow for a number of months, after which it was sealed after the devastation in Fort Price. The change, as she mentioned, was flipped.
“In the summertime, after the season did not go the best way I wished it to, I used to be like, ‘Okay, that is my time,'” McClain mentioned. “I’m lastly going to place every part I’ve into this staff regardless of how the yr appears to be like for me. I simply wish to do what’s greatest for the staff.”
Along with seemingly being one of many staff’s most constant and necessary gymnasts this yr, McClain has embraced a management function and hopes her personal private progress will assist a few of the underclassmen attain that time ahead of she did.
For McCool Griffeth, Clark and the remainder of the teaching employees, being a gifted gymnast is simply a part of the equation in relation to one’s worth to the staff, and typically in dialog concerning the staff and its priorities, it virtually feels secondary. As a result of for the Tigers, being a part of the staff — and shopping for into that concept totally and fully — is what’s most necessary.
And whereas McCool Griffeth will inform you the teaching employees is most centered on process-based objectives, and enhancing week after week all through the season, the emphasis on the staff and what it means to be part of it — regardless of one’s function — would possibly simply be the additional edge that will get the Tigers previous the defeat of 2025 and again to the place they really feel they belong within the spring.
“Our objective is to win a nationwide championship,” Chio mentioned. “It is LSU, I feel that is simply type of a given. And I simply need everybody to be as shut, and bonded, as potential. These are my sisters, and we can have enjoyable, and simply hold grinding each second, till we attain the highest collectively.”
