After the Illinois women's gymnastics team had its best performance of the season at the 2015 Big Ten Championships, which was immediately followed by spring break, Gymnastike spoke to head coach Kim Landrus on her team's prosperity and their next meet, 

The team finished second place at Big Tens, which is the highest they’ve finished since 2009. What are your thoughts on their really great performance?
I was just excited for them. They worked so hard all this year, and to go out there at Michigan and accomplish a lot of the goals that we had is such a great feeling. From the very first routine all the way to the last, the momentum kept building, and it was just really a thrill the whole night.



At Big Tens, you guys finally hit a 197, something the girls have been saying they’ve known they were capable of since the start of season. So what are your thoughts on them finally peaking at the right time, postseason, and what clicked to finally get that?
It’s just everything that we’ve talked about all year. It really comes down to all of the little things. I do think that they feed off of each other, so once that vault rotation continued to get better and better, we just carried that momentum to bars and all the way through the meet. It’s just exciting to break your school record at Big Ten Championships. It really says so much about this team.

Like you said, they did break the school record set last year. So what is it like continuing to make more history after such a historic season last year?
Making history’s always fun! It’s just something that they’ve worked really hard at, so to put it all together and to be up on that podium and break the school record, I just know that it meant a lot to the girls.

Earlier last week, it was announced that you guys would be competing at the Morgantown Regional, and you were actually there two years ago. What are your thoughts on going back there and competing at Regionals?
I’m excited to go back to West Virginia. They put on a great championships. You’re right; we did go there in 2013. A lot of the girls will be familiar with it. Even some of the sophomores went and cheered us on, so they were able to experience that thrill from the stands. So now, for them to go back and be part of it, it’s going to be a really exciting Regional.


Head coach Kim Landrus has a talk with freshman Becca Cuppy before the Illini's annual Pink Meet.


At Regionals, you’re going to have to place in the top two. You have to have a set finish, unlike most of the meets so far this season. What do you think the key is to finishing in the top two?
I think the key is that we have to take one thing at a time. It’s all about the process, and I tell the girls that all the time. It’s not about the result. It’s about the process. And if we take it one routine at a time, one skill at a time, everything will come together.

You guys had an off week (from competition), but still had practice last week. So there’s a week without competition between Big Tens, where the team did really well, and Regionals. How are you going to try to carry that momentum from Big Tens into Regionals since there’s kind of a big gap?
Well, as a coaching staff, we really thought it would be really important to stay on schedule, so we actually ran a Regional competition last week. We had a practice day on Thursday, and then we had the meet on Friday. We started on beam, just like we’ll do for Regionals, had the byes, had everything, so we simulated what it will be like this Saturday. I think it kept them really in the zone and really fired up.



Watch Illinois face No. 2 Florida, No. 11 Stanford, No. 19 Arkansas, No. 25 New Hampshire and West Virginia in the Morgantown Regional on Saturday, April 4 at 3 PM CST. A live stream will be available via West Virginia's athletics site.