BATON ROUGE — The LSU gymnastics team has earned the top seed at this week's Southeastern Conference championship in New Orleans. By entering the competition atop the standings, the Tigers' will progress in its typical home rotation: vault, bars, beam and floor.

LSU finished the regular season with a National Qualifying Score of 198.125, the highest in the SEC. Florida had a better record in this year's league meets and won the conference crown.

The LSU portion of the meet will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday, as the Tigers compete against second-ranked Florida, No. 3 Kentucky and No. 4 Alabama. The daytime session, which starts at 2 p.m., features teams rated fifth through eighth: Arkansas, Missouri, Auburn and Georgia.

The meet will be held at the Smoothie King Center. 

LSU last held the top seed in 2019, which is the most-recent time the championship sessions were held in New Orleans. The Tigers won their fourth league championship then, following titles in 2017 and 2018.

Both sessions will be televised on the SEC Network.

The Tigers finished the season ranked third nationally, behind Oklahoma and California. LSU had the nation's second-highest average score this season, behind only Oklahoma, but because of the way qualifying scores are calculated it enters the postseason ranked third.