The Illinois women’s gymnastics team is motivated.

With only seven meets before the Big Ten Championships, the team is looking for something it hasn’t been able to find all season: consistency.

After a subpar performance at last weekend’s meet against now-No. 9 Nebraska, No. 22 Illinois is looking to bounce back this Saturday against No. 13 Minnesota.

“I’m pretty confident that we’ll do great,” senior Alina Weinstein said. “I think that last weekend was a big disappointment for us, and sometimes you need something like that to get you back into gear. So, hopefully that gets us going again.”

Illinois will have a tough task keeping up with a scorching Minnesota team that is 8-0 overall (3-0 Big Ten). The Golden Gophers started the season strong with a win against Washington and two weekends ago defeated then-No. 1 Michigan in a quad meet.

Minnesota lacked consistency in its performance against Michigan State last weekend, but still emerged victorious.

“They’re a very well-coached team,” Illinois head coach Kim Landrus said. “They preform well. They’re a very talented group and they’re going to be on their A-game. They also went and had a meet last weekend that will make them hungry, just like we did.”

All-arounders Jenny Covers and Lindsay Mable, who rank 42nd and 43rd, respectively, lead the Gophers.

The Illini will look to match the Golden Gophers with all-around performers Weinstein and freshman Giana O’Connor, who ranks 61st in the nation in all-around and was awarded the Big Ten Freshman of the Week honor for her performance against the Cornhuskers.

“It’s a great honor,” O’Connor said. “I’m trying to be humble about it so I don’t want to ‘woo,’ but I’m really happy.”

Illinois has had an up-and-down year. The Illini started the season 0-2 before finding their stride against Michigan State. They are looking to bring the flare they had against the Spartans and lacked at Nebraska to the Sports Pavilion in Minneapolis.

“At Nebraska, we weren’t great on every routine,” Landrus said. “We had some great routines, don’t get me wrong, but we had some things we need to work on in order to put together 24 great routines.”

To go 24-for-24, the Illini will be focusing, as always, on the little details.

“What we have been really focusing on bars are our handstands and our stuck landings,” Landrus said. “On beam, we have gone back to working on execution, our form, the way we preform our skills. On vault, the dynamics of the vault, and on floor, the leaps, and the jumps, and the landings on our tumbling passes and giving it the wow factor.”

Weinstein agreed that things like sticking routines will be the deciding factor.

“At this point, what separates the good teams from the great ones is what we have been working on,” Weinstein said. “Hitting handstands, sticking dismounts, minimizing the deductions and finding that tenth (of a point) where you can, and I think that’s what’s going to set us apart.”

Nicholas can be reached at [email protected] and @IlliniSportsGuy.