It’s time again for the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships again, and once again the Oklahoma gymnastics squad enters the competition as the No. 1 overall seed.
The Sooner women earned the No. 1 position for the sixth time in the past seven seasons, and Oklahoma will host one of the four regional sites for the 12th consecutive year.
Nine teams will participate in the Norman Regional, which begins on March 30. Teams from Arizona and West Virginia will compete against each other in the opening round on March 30 at Lloyd Noble Center. The opening round winner will join OU, Arizona State and Arkansas in the evening session on March 31. The afternoon side of the bracket on March 31 will feature teams from eighth-ranked Minnesota, No. 9 California, Utah State and Boise State.
The top two teams from each side of the bracket will advance to the regional final on April 2. An extra day has been built in this year between the second-round competition and the championship round.
This is the fourth time since 2011(2011, 2012 and 2013) that the OU women have hosted one of the NCAA regionals, and they were crowned the regional champions all three times. If the Sooners are able to win a fourth regional championship at the LNC, they will earn a berth in the NCAA Championships for the 18th consecutive year.
The Sooners head into the NCAA regionals after capturing their 12th Big 12 championship under head coach K.J. Kindler and their ninth in the last 10 years.
The eight teams that come out of the four NCAA regional sites — Norman (OU), Auburn, Raleigh (North Carolina State) and Seattle (Washington) — qualify for the NCAA Women’s Championships April 14-16 in Ft. Worth, Texas.
The OU women have won four national championships in gymnastics (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019), all under Kindler and have appeared in 20 NCAA Championships, 14 of which have come during Kindler’s time at Oklahoma. The Sooners finished second in the 2021 NCAA Championships.