• By SCOTT HOTARD
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Feb 5, 2010

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When she leaves the Pete Maravich Assembly Center following tonight’s meet, LSU gymnastics coach D-D Breaux won’t concern herself as much with whether the Tigers won or lost as she will the score her team posted.

That’s always the case.

But rest assured, Breaux and her gymnasts, who welcome Alabama for a 7 p.m. start, would sure like to taste victory in a competition that brings the nation’s top-ranked team to town.

“If you’re taking on the best,” Breaux said, “you’ve got to up your game. The thing we focused on this week was perfection in performance. We’re trying to up the level of our performance.”

The Tigers rose to the occasion on last year’s trip to Tuscaloosa, where no LSU gymnastics team had won since 1976. All that ended when Breaux’s team completed a 196.625-195.750 upset.

Alabama went on to its 25th appearance in the Super Six, finishing second to Georgia. It marked the 11th time in program history that the Crimson Tide recorded a top two national finish.

Buoyed by the momentum gathered during last year’s stretch run, Alabama has rolled to a 5-0 start, including a 3-0 mark in Southeastern Conference action, with an average score of 196.494. Alabama is ranked first nationally on the vault and the beam, third on the bars and fifth on the floor.

LSU (3-3, 1-2), which finished sixth at nationals last year, has an average score of 195.106. The Tigers rank 10th nationally on the vault, 15th on the bars, 18th on the beam and 11th on the floor.

As intriguing as the matchup itself: the personal competition featuring LSU’s Susan Jackson, the nation’s No. 1 overall performer, and Alabama’s second-ranked Morgan Dennis.

A steady force throughout her career, Jackson emerged as LSU’s ace after setting the table for Ashleigh Clare-Kearney, who won two individual national championships as a senior last year. Jackson averages a 39.487 all-around total. Her counterpart Dennis averages a 39.383. “I imagine it will be a very good competition between the two of them,” Breaux said.

Last year’s meet, Breaux said, was a good competition across the board. It went right down to the final performer in the final event.

Breaux hopes tonight’s meet is similar. But the Tigers, who have beaten the Tide only 13 times in 91 all-time meetings, will need to buck more history to come out on top.

LSU last topped Alabama in Baton Rouge in 2002.