'We're all using it as motivation': LSU aims to shake off last season and win again

AS CHEERS FILLED the air at Dickie's Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, one corner of the floor was uncannily quiet.

Several minutes -- and what felt like much, much longer -- passed after UCLA's Emma Malabuyo stuck her beam dismount, the final routine for the Bruins. The eyes of virtually everyone in the arena were glued to the scoreboard.

But the gymnasts on the LSU team already knew what the result would be. They stood in near-silence by the vault, tears streaming down their faces, exchanging drawn-out hugs with one another.

When Malabuyo's 9.975 finally flashed it was official. The Tigers, the No. 1 seed and the defending national champions, were going home. UCLA and Utah were advancing to the NCAA championship finals.

"It was really heavy and crushing at the time," LSU associate head coach Courtney McCool Griffeth told ESPN in November. "And that stays with you."

Eventually, the team was able to find perspective and, according to McCool Griffeth, take the emotion out of it. Now, all these months after that day in April, the Tigers have been able to learn from the experience -- and let the sting of disappointment make them even better this season.

"The past is in the past, but I think it's important to reflect on the bad moments that we did have and try to learn from those moments because that is important," junior Konnor McClain told ESPN ahead of the season. "You don't want to repeat what happened. ... But I think we're all using it as motivation, even the newcomers and our transfers. ... It's like, 'Okay, how can we be even better this time around?'"

MCCLAIN AND HER teammates didn't waste any time in getting ready for 2026.

The Tigers returned to the gym in June, nearly seven months before their opening meet at the star-studded Sprouts' Farmers Market Collegiate Quad on Saturday against three of the top four teams from last season -- Oklahoma, UCLA and Utah (4 p.m. ET, ABC).

While being back in the practice gym was a familiar comfort for McClain, the LSU team has a new look overall. Six gymnasts graduated at the end of last season -- including individual NCAA champions Haleigh Bryant and Aleah Finnegan and fan favorite Olivia Dunne. There were a number of new faces to get to know, and McClain didn't know what to expect at first when she walked into the team's first unofficial summer practice.

"The energy was 100% different," McClain said. "This team is so young, but so funny. From the moment you walk in, everyone is just cracking jokes, and it's like that the whole practice. ... When you're having fun, it just makes everything easy."

Since those early sessions, the team has continued to bond, both inside and outside of the gym. They had a weekend retreat at the start of the fall semester in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and held make-your-own dip nights and pumpkin-carving parties. McClain said the vibe in the gym has remained upbeat and even downright silly at times as the season rapidly approaches.

And the team should once again challenge everyone in the country. McClain said she is back to full health after an Achilles tear last year, and hopes to compete on all four events this season. She claimed the SEC beam title her freshman year, and scored three perfect 10s (twice on beam, once on floor).

Sophomore Kailin Chio was the SEC freshman of the year in 2025 after an incredible debut season and won the NCAA vault title. And junior Amari Drayton, another former elite gymnast, has been a major contributor on vault and floor. Sophomores and fellow former national team gymnasts Kaliya Lincoln and Lexi Zeiss are expected to contribute in multiple lineups, and the team has high hopes for freshmen Nina Ballou, who won four floor national titles at the club level, and Haley Mustari, who won four national bar titles in club.

Chio said the closeness of the team has been a large part of their preseason focus -- and everyone has made it a point to get to know one another individually. Chio was mentored by Bryant, now an assistant coach on the team, during her first season and is already trying to return the favor to the new group of freshmen.

"I went through so much during my freshman year, especially being away from home, so I know what it's like," Chio told ESPN. "I just try to tell all of them, 'This is supposed to be fun. I know it's really hard, but just try to enjoy every moment because it does go by fast.'"

Such relationships have been vital to the team's success in recent years. After several seasons of being a perennial contender, the Tigers won their first NCAA championship title in 2024. It was an incredible accomplishment to be sure, and one that was celebrated by the team and its fans with a victory parade in Baton Rouge. But it was business as usual for those involved with the program.

In fact, in an interview with ESPN last year, head coach Jay Clark said they had done "nothing" differently ahead of the 2025 season.

"The only thing that changes are the things that change year over year regardless, because you have personalities and attributes and gymnastics that leave, and then you have personality and attributes and gymnastics that come, and you have to figure out how do you backfill those voids, whether it's personality traits or leadership traits," Clark said. "You have to let each team develop its own personality, but the destination is always the same."

That all remains true, but the team did make a slight change this fall. They've utilized "accountability partners" for the past several seasons, matching teammates with one another to help each other throughout the season, and this year the idea has been supercharged into "Tiger Teammates." Per McCool Griffeth, members of the team are assigned to a different partner every month and they are tasked with getting to know each other and encourage one another as much as possible during that time. They also created "Motivation Monday," in which the team picks a different word for the week and comes up with something they can do together to emphasize the word.

While that idea is new, Mondays have always been the most crucial day of the week for the team. During the season, no matter what has happened over the weekend -- whether it's a big victory or a challenging loss -- everyone gathers in the meeting room to reflect on the week that was and set the tone for the one to come. A pyramid is posted on the wall as a reminder of what the team decided to make its core values at the start of the season. This year, the words, "With each other, for each other" sit at the very bottom as the foundation for everything else.

"We do it every single week," McCool Griffeth told ESPN. "There are so many crucial things we can see visually, and hear and talk about, and the consistency of that is something we believe in a lot."

And it's not just rehashing who scored what on which event, or often about scores at all. It's usually the little things that carry the most weight.

"We do shout outs in the meeting room, and we hear the things even [the coaches] don't see," McCool Griffeth said. "[The gymnasts] will often share what their teammates have done, and what they appreciated, and all the ways they have gone out of their way for one another. We try to emphasize that everyone has the ability to influence in so many ways, and really acknowledge what everyone brings to the team."

Everyone on the team was heavily recruited and highly successful before arriving in Baton Rouge -- but with 21 members on the team this season and with just six competing on each event, not everyone will have the chance to compete every week. And for some, they rarely will crack an event lineup throughout their four years. Even Dunne, a former junior national team member and arguably the most famous collegiate gymnast in recent memory, only consistently made the lineup on one or two events during her career. (An injury sidelined her most of her fifth year in 2025.) It can be a challenge for young gymnasts, used to being the star at their club, to accept a different role.

Even for those, like McClain and Chio, who immediately make an impact in their first season, adjusting to being part of a team after years of primarily competing only as an individual can feel like culture shock. McClain said she wasn't fully comfortable with the all-for-the-team approach until the end of last season. Her Achilles' injury ironically helped her in that regard as she had to find a different niche for herself when she wasn't able to practice for several months, and then it was sealed after the devastation in Fort Worth. The switch, as she said, was flipped.

"In the summer, after the season didn't go the way I wanted it to, I was like, 'Okay, this is my time,'" McClain said. "I am finally going to put everything I have into this team no matter how the year looks for me. I just want to do what's best for the team."

In addition to likely being one of the team's most consistent and important gymnasts this year, McClain has embraced a leadership role and hopes her own personal growth will help some of the underclassmen reach that point sooner than she did.