BATON ROUGE - Former LSU gymnastics coach D-D Breaux, who is all-too-familiar with the NCAA Championships with 35 appearances, commented on LSU's appearance in the final round of the tournament.

When asked if this particular team is any different from LSU's past teams, Breaux said she did not think it was any different, but praised current coach Jay Clark as "the man," saying him being in charge of the team and the team knocking on the door of a national championship is "as gratifying as if I were there myself."

"This team is so talented and so deep and so ready," Clark said. "But Skip Bertman used to tell me, 'you gotta have a little bit of luck,' so I think there's a little bit of luck involved in this, and I think this team is ready. It's going to be an exciting meet, it's going to be a Texas shootout in there, it's going to be fabulous."

When asked if the elimination of Oklahoma, the number one team in the country, changes the pressure for the teams, Breaux said it opened the door for four teams with a "tremendous amount of parity" to get the victory.

Breaux also discussed how gratifying it was to see a program she helped define and build make it this far once again, and she used it as an opportunity to promote other successful LSU sports programs, as she attends many games across sports.

"It's a tremendous amount of gratification, and going to every event is important to me," Breaux said. "I mean, go out and follow our tennis team, our men's tennis team is knocking on the door of an SEC Championship! Go watch them. But it's the gratification of building something great and seeing it continue to be great when I'm not driving that train; Jay is, and he's doing a great job."