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Let’s try and figure out where things can get better.
It’s been over a month since LSU finished the 2026 NCAA women’s gymnastics season as national runners-up by less than a tenth. LSU had a tremendous season and had a chance to pull off the upset, but things didn’t break their way. Now that the season is over, I wanted to look at everything that happened and compare Oklahoma and LSU based on the raw numbers. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be explaining some of the things I noticed as I dug deeper into these two teams and the 792 routines they competed in 2026.
The first trend that I noticed after combing through the data is how much LSU relied on Kailin Chio to give the team a big score on vault and, to a lesser extent, beam. If LSU is going to succeed in 2027, the people around her need to score in the 9.9+ range more consistently.
9.9 share
LSU competed 384 routines in 2026 and scored at least a 9.9 on 186, or 48.44%, of them. To cut down on space, I’ll be calling these percentages “shares” going forward. LSU’s 9.9 share was 51.04% on bars and was 62.50% on floor. Beam had a 9.9 share of 42.71% and vault had a 9.9 share of 37.50%. On vault and beam combined, LSU’s 9.9 share was 40.10%. Kailin’s 9.9 share on those two events was 90.63%. Kailin did a lot of the heavy lifting on those two events’ 9.9 shares, as she was responsible for 41.67% of LSU’s big scores on vault, 31.15% of those scores on beam and 37.66% of those scores on the two events combined.
When Kailin’s scores are removed from vault and beam, her importance gets more obvious. LSU’s 9.9 share drops to 33.75% on beam and drops to 26.25% on vault when excluding her scores. That difference between beam and vault is due to Kailin getting some help from Konnor, and that’s something for a separate article. Instead, I want to narrow the focus to the upper echelon of the score range: 9.95+.
9.95 share
LSU had 21 vaults score at least 9.95 in 2026, good for a share of 21.88%. Kailin had 13 of them for a mind-bending share of 81.25%. That means the rest of the team combined for eight such scores. 61.90% of the massive scores on an event shouldn’t come from one person. It’s not sustainable.
Beam was similar. LSU had 22 beam routines score at least 9.95 for a share of 22.92%. Kailin’s personal 9.95 share on beam was 75% thanks to her 12 scores of at least 9.95, and that means the rest of the team combined for 10 of those scores. 54.55% of the 9.95+ scores coming from one person is unsustainable, too.
Let’s compare those to the other events. LSU’s lowest 9.95 share came on bars, an event on which they had just 13 such scores for a share of 13.54%. Kailin only had three such scores there. On floor, LSU had a surprisingly low 20 scores of at least 9.95 for a share of 20.83%. Kailin was responsible for seven of those 20. That’s far more sustainable. To see what sustainability looks like, go to the dynasty.
Comparing to Oklahoma
Oklahoma’s overall 9.9 share was slightly higher than LSU’s at 56.37%, but they had one fewer routine of 9.95+ than LSU despite competing 24 more routines. When looking at their numbers compared to LSU, there’s far more balance across their roster.
Kailin combined for 51 of LSU’s 186 scores of at least 9.9, which means she had 27.42% of LSU’s total. Oklahoma’s team leader in scores of at least 9.9 was Addison Fatta, who accounted for 39 of the team’s 230 9.9+ scores. That means her share of the total was just 16.96%. Jumping up a rung to the 9.95s, Kailin had 35 of LSU’s 76 such scores for a share of 46.05%. Faith Torrez led Oklahoma with 17 of the team’s 75 9.95+ scores for a share of just 22.67%.
Continuing on this trend is the total of the people in second. Kailin had 51 9.9+ scores, while the two gymnasts tied for second place, Konnor McClain and Amari Drayton, had 48 scores of 9.9+ combined. For Oklahoma, Fatta had the team lead with 39, but Mackenzie Estep was a close second with 33 and Faith Torrez and Ella Murphy tied for third with 28 each. Going to the 9.95s, Kailin had 35 of LSU’s while Kaliya Lincoln was a distant second with 15. For Oklahoma, Torrez’s 17 9.95+ scores aren’t as big an outlier thanks to Fatta’s 11 and Estep’s 10.
Where it gets to be a massive problem is on vault and beam. Beam deserves the first look because there’s some similarity between LSU and Oklahoma. Kailin had 12 of LSU’s 22 9.95+ beam routines, but Faith Torrez had 12 of Oklahoma’s 26 and had far more of a lead over second place than Kailin did. When pulling back to the 9.9+ range, things are much clearer. Kailin had 14 of LSU’s 41 9.9+ scores on beam. Konnor was the only person to even come close to her, and she had nine such scores. By comparison, Torrez led OU with 14 9.9+ scores on beam out of 58 total. She was followed closely by Ella Murphy’s 12 and Keira Wells’ 10.
Then there’s vault, the event where this is clear as day. Kailin had 13 of LSU’s 21 9.95+ scores on vault. Kaliya was second with five and Amari was third with three. That’s the entire list for LSU. Compare that to Oklahoma which had Estep, Fatta and Hannah Scheible tie for the team lead with five apiece out of their 24 9.95+ vault scores. Keira Wells also had four. Pull back to the 9.9+ scores and it’s even more apparent. Kailin had 15 of LSU’s 36 vaults that went at least 9.9; nobody else had more than five. Meanwhile at Oklahoma, Addison Fatta went at least 9.9 13 times and Mackenzie Estep went at least 9.9 11 times. Seven Oklahoma gymnasts had at least five scores of 9.9 or better on vault in 2026, a testament to how insanely good they were.
Conclusion
The 2026 season ended with Kailin having all the pressure in the world on her, and those situations happened far too often during the season. Yes, she tended to go up and drill her routine like few others can, but nobody’s perfect all the time. If LSU’s going to succeed in 2027, everyone else has to step up and do what it takes to do routines that used to go 9.85 go 9.9 and so on. That’s one of the biggest reasons why Oklahoma seems unbeatable.
With all of that said, it’s worth noting that Kailin wasn’t the only person put in these pressure situations on a regular basis. The numbers indicate that there was a problem in the lineups that became very obvious late in the season: the front half of the lineup put too much pressure on the back half for big scores. Next time, I’ll dive into this deeper and show how clear this was when compared to Oklahoma.
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