The lights have dimmed in Pauley Pavilion.

But the Bruins will not leave their home crowd magic in Westwood.

“We bring Pauley everywhere,” said senior Jordan Chiles. “And that’s why it’s so easy for us to walk into an arena and be like: … ‘This is our house. We are going to go out here and do everything that we can to make sure that we do what we can at home, away.’”

Leaving the confines of its home gym for the postseason, No. 5 UCLA gymnastics (15-2, 9-0 Big Ten) will venture to its second Big Ten championship meet in Champaign, where it will face No. 10 Michigan (10-4, 6-3), No. 11 Michigan State (10-5, 6-3) and No. 13 Minnesota (12-4, 7-2) in session three. The championship will be decided by the single highest team score across all sessions.

The Bruins defended last year’s unblemished regular season conference record and secured the regular season title Feb. 27 at the Big Four meet, despite posting a season-low score of 196.950.

But UCLA quickly regained momentum in March, defeating No. 7 Stanford and No. 12 Utah with 197.775 and 197.850 marks, respectively. The latter score represents the squad’s second-highest total this season and its first dual-meet victory over the Red Rocks since 2019.

The March 14 meet against Utah also marked UCLA’s final home meet of the season and drew a program-record-crowd of 13,089. The Bruins capped the year with 43,798 total home attendees – their highest tally since 2019 – while also breaking attendance records for opponents’ venues at five away meets.

“Energy is energy. Whether it’s positive or negative, we can flip it around and use it to our advantage,” said senior Ciena Alipio. “When we’re away, it’s using whatever the crowd wants to give us and turning it into something amazing.”

UCLA did not need home-crowd energy at the 2025 Big Ten championships, where it posted a season-high 198.450 – the highest score in conference championship history and the fourth-highest in program history.

The beam lineup led the way with a program-record-tying 39.750, highlighted by Alipio’s first career perfect 10. The San Jose, California, local had earned just two scores above 9.900 prior to the conference title.

Although Alipio has yet to achieve perfection in 2026, she has also yet to dip below 9.900 on beam this season, with six scores of 9.950 or higher.

She is tied for No. 4 in the nation in the event and is the top-ranked beamworker in the Big Ten.

Chiles follows a different pattern.

The senior’s lowest-ranked event is beam at No. 7, though she still boasts UCLA’s second-highest beam ranking with a 9.940 NQS.

Chiles enters the postseason leading the national floor rankings for the fifth consecutive week and having finished the regular season with four perfect scores and a 9.985 NQS.

Floor remains UCLA’s lowest ranked event at No. 8 and the Westwood squad owns an NQS of 49.397 – 0.218 below last year’s squad.

Freshman Ashlee Sullivan holds UCLA’s second-highest floor ranking at No. 26, with six scores of 9.900 or higher.

The freshman has helped UCLA secure No. 5 and No. 6 respective rankings on bars and vault – posting a career-high 9.975 on vault last week. Sullivan earned her first Big Ten co-event specialist of the week honor and led the Bruins to a season-high 49.475 event total.

“We’re all peaking at the right time. All of the chips are falling into place,” Sullivan said. “I am super proud of this team.”