Not even “Dixieland Delight” could salvage a disappointing night for Alabama gymnastics last Friday.

Freshman Emily Gaskins’ floor routine sent a jolt of energy through Coleman Coliseum, but the ninth-ranked Crimson Tide’s loss to No. 2 Florida was already cemented. It wasn’t even the loss that was so deflating; it was the way it happened.

The team’s score of 196.475 was its lowest since Jan. 11 and continued a concerning trend. For the fourth straight time, its score was equal to or less than the score at the previous meet.

“We’ve got to learn how to recover from [mistakes] quicker and not let it carry on,” coach Dana Duckworth said. “The one good thing about where we’re at is that we haven’t given ourselves a space for [complacency].”

While the team’s score has been falling, several individual gymnasts have recorded career-high scores. Eleven routines in the last three meets have earned a 9.9 or above.

Where the problem arises, though, is in building on those performances. Duckworth said that was her message to the team on Saturday: If the gymnast before you goes 9.9 or above, it’s your job to match her performance and keep the momentum going.

For the last couple of weeks, she has been encouraging each gymnast to “find an extra .025” – that is, vigilantly scour their routines for imperfections to clean up.

“I would say a lot of the landings [could be improved], things that we’re easily giving away that just need to be stuck, and also form things,” junior Maddie Desch said. “Legs together, pointed feet – just not giving away all those little things.”

Needless to say, changing the finer details of the skills they’ve been performing for most of their lives isn’t easy. Duckworth and her assistant coaches frequently use video in practice so the gymnasts can see which specific features they need to work on.

Once improvements are made or the routines are tweaked, the next battle is restricting those thoughts of mechanics to the practice gym. When the competition begins every Friday night, the gymnasts want their minds to be free and to let their preparation and muscle memory take over.

“I don’t tell myself corrections when I’m up there. I know what I need to do,” Gaskins said. “It might be one little cue like ‘Back leg on this’ or something little like that. But your body and your mind have done so many in the gym that when you get up on the beam, you’re really just like, ‘Okay, let’s show this off. Go big, go aggressive.’ You’re not coaching yourself anymore by that time.”

Desch and Gaskins both mentioned the importance of having the same thoughts and state of mind during competition as they have in the gym during practice. Gaskins fell off the balance beam against Florida, leading to a score of 9.275. Afterward, she immediately went up to Duckworth and told her she knew exactly what she did.

“Every time I’ve gone to compete beam, I’ve stayed in my own little area and just really tried to calm myself down that way,” Gaskins said. “But when I’m here in the gym, I’m right there with my teammates and I’m cheering for them and I’m just in a more relaxed state of mind. I think I get a little too wrapped up when I go to compete, so I’m just going to try to keep it exactly how I do it in the gym.”

Duckworth, knowing that pressure will only mount as the postseason approaches, likes to mix it up to keep the gymnasts on their toes, literally and figuratively. Sometimes she limits their warm-up time. Sometimes she makes all of them do their routine again if one of them makes a mistake. Sometimes she stops everything to test how a gymnast performs when every eye in the gym is on her.

“Our system is [to] put more pressure on them in gym,” Duckworth said. “We do things unexpectedly. They need to be able to handle the pressure no matter how they feel and no matter how their day’s going because we don’t get to choose when we compete. … If you’re nervous, compete nervous. If you’re feeling great, compete great. If you’re not feeling great, compete that way anyway.”

Friday’s meet at No. 13 Kentucky is the eighth of 11 regular-season meets. Every team in the top 13 has scored above a 197 this year – except Alabama. It reached 196.900 on Jan. 11, then back-to-back 196.85s, then a 196.7, then a 196.475. It is time, Duckworth and several gymnasts have said, to reverse the trend and live up to what they’ve long known they’re capable of.

“We’re done talking about potential,” Duckworth said. “Potential, schmential. Let’s go. Let’s do this. We have some young women on our team who are hungry for that. If everyone individually does their best, collectively we’re going to kick 197 in the bottom.”