Alabama Gymnastics Ready to Step Up on Another Big Stage

The Crimson Tide has had its best performances this season in quad meets, which could be an advantage as the NCAA Tournament starts Thursday with regionals.

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

There have been ups and downs, wins and losses, 196s, 197s and one 198, but it all comes down to this. 

Alabama gymnastics' NCAA journey begins Thursday afternoon in the second round of the Norman Regional against No. 9 Kentucky, No. 22 Illinois and No. 25 Iowa. The top two teams from the afternoon session will go on to compete in Saturday's regional final. 

The Crimson Tide is coming off its second highest score of the season with a second-place finish at SECs, which helped moved Alabama up two spots in the rankings to earn the No. 8 seed for NCAAs.

"This team has proved time and time again that they know how to step up in big moments against the toughest competitions," Alabama head coach Ashley Johnston said. "We’ve been really strategic about how we are pacing this group to be able to peak at the right time, and so I believe that showed last week in our preparation for SECs. This is another meet that we’ve had circled to really make sure we manage bodies and minds well so that we can be at our best on Thursday and then again, hopefully on Saturday and moving forward from that.”

From this point on, Alabama will exclusively be competing in quad meet format where all four events are going on simultaneously, which can create more noise and pressure in the gym, but also keeps meets moving at a quicker pace than the dual meet format used throughout most of the regular season. 

The good news for the Crimson Tide is that two of its best scores this season came in quad meets. Alabama scored a season high of 198 in the Metroplex Challenge in Texas back in mid-February. And then most recently Alabama scored the 197.925 in the quad meet evening session of the SEC championship. 

"I know they're excited about being able to step into that again, knowing that there's a lot of confidence from that Metroplex meet and SECs," Johnston said. "So it feels like something that we're already really good at stepping in and knowing how to thrive in a big, intense format.”

Johnston is entering her first postseason as a head coach but has plenty of experience in the postseason as both a gymnast and assistant coach. She was a gymnast on Alabama's last national title team in 2012 and had the championship-clinching routine herself as the anchor on balance beam. Last season, as an assistant at Auburn, Johnston helped the Tigers reach their first ever final four. 

Now as head coach, she feels like the staff has managed the gymnasts the right way throughout the season so that they're peaking at the right time. She also feels like she has the right balance of veteran experience like Shallon Olsen, Makarri Doggette and Luisa Blanco alongside talented underclassmen like Gabby Gladieux, Jordyn Paradise and Karis German. 

"We're just excited to keep building off of what we have done and just the energy and everything that we tend to build off of each other," Paradise said. 

Last season at regionals in Seattle, Alabama posted two of its highest scores of the season, including a 198.175 in the regional final. Olsen, Doggette, Blanco, Shania Adams, Lilly Hudson and Ella Burgess all gained valuable experience last season. 

Two years ago at regionals, Doggette scored her first perfect 10 on the uneven bars and repeated the feat this January in the dual meet against Kentucky. She competed in two events at SECs, but not on bars. Johnston was asked about her availability and the overall health of the team heading into NCAAs. She said the team is as healthy as they will be, and it will depend on how things go in warmups for who will be in the lineups. 

No matter who is available, Alabama is proud of the depth it has been able to develop. The Crimson Tide also should be able to place in the top two Thursday afternoon because of the other teams in the meet. Alabama has faced Kentucky twice this season. The Wildcats were victorious in the dual meet in Kentucky, but Alabama finished ahead of Kentucky at SECs. Neither Illinois or Iowa have even scored in the 197 range this season, so Alabama would likely have to count a fall to dip below either of the Big Ten foes in scoring. 

Things will become a little more tricky if the Crimson Tide does advance to Saturday's regional final alongside host No. 1 Oklahoma and some mix of Kentucky, No. 16 Ohio State or No. 17 Arkansas. There will be less margin for error as Alabama will have to have one of the two highest scores among the four teams in the finals in order to advance to the NCAA Championships in Fort Worth, Texas. 

The Crimson Tide has advanced to the Championships the last two years, but has not reached the finals since the format changed in 2019 from the Super Six to four teams on the final night of competition. 

Before Alabama can begin thinking about that though, it has to stay focused first on regionals, which begin Thursday at 2 p.m. on ESPN+.

"We are in the postseason," Johnston said. "We are in a tournament-style competition where it's all about surviving and advancing, and so we want to be in that top two Thursday night. And to do that, we’ve got to compete well. We can’t hold back. We can’t save anything. But at the same time, we’ve got to manage our bodies and manage our minds.

“We’ve been training for this all year to have the depth to be able to put multiple people up at any given time to make sure that we have a healthy team that can compete for as long as we possibly can."

See also:

Alabama Gymnastics Earns No. 8 Overall Seed in NCAA Tournament

An Alabama Gymnastics Bond Formed in a Snap 

Alabama Gymnastics Rises to the Challenge with Impressive Showing in SEC Championships