Most head coaches will never say it publicly, but after a season has concluded they’ll admit to a confidant they didn’t like coaching that particular team.
Maybe the players didn’t buy into what the coach was teaching. Maybe there were too many attitude problems and head cases to solve. Maybe when the going got tough, they folded.
Maybe they were talented, but never played with heart and grit to reach that talent level. So, it wasn’t enjoyable to coach a team like that.
For all the success first-year LSU head coach Kim Mulkey has had in her 22-year Naismith Hall of Fame head coaching career, her three NCAA women’s basketball national championships, her 19 straight seasons of 25 wins or more, she’ll admit she’s enjoyed coaching some teams more than others.
What all coaches want in a team is nirvana, which is difficult to obtain when so many forces (most from social media) are seeping into player’s heads. At the end of a season, no matter how many wins or losses, a coach will love and never forget a team that gave everything it had playing to their talent level.
It's why Mulkey will long remember that after LSU won just 9 games last season, her first Tigers’ team concluded a 26-6 season Monday night with a 79-64 NCAA tournament second round loss to Ohio State on LSU’s home court.
“One of my most enjoyable years ever in my career,” Mulkey said after the loss. “I personally judge good coaches based on the talent they have on that floor and if are they overachieving. Did we beat some people this year we should not have beaten? You bet we did. We beat a lot of 'em. We beat ranked teams. We didn't start this baby ranked. We came from nowhere and just built it.
“One of my most enjoyable years obviously because we were winning, but it is enjoyable because you can see the impact that one program can have on an entire university. You can see it. And I think all of us in this room saw the impact and it was done in one year.”
The Tigers were a No. 3 seed and the Big Ten co-champion Buckeyes a No. 6 seed, but the Ohio State win was no upset. The better, more well-rounded, better-balanced team won.
But as a testament to how the LSU fan base fell in love with Mulkey’s team, not a soul walked out of the Pete Maravich Center at the start of the fourth quarter despite the Tigers trailing by 20. They knew this team was going to make the final 10 minutes a death match to the final buzzer. And they did. Every drive to the basket ended with bodies on the floor.
There wasn’t a single LSU fan who didn’t expect anything less from a team anchored by five seniors including four graduate students led by Khayla Pointer, Jailin Cherry and Faustine Aifuwa who played a combined 415 career games for the Tigers.
“I hope people when they left here tonight felt the same way, those kids never stopped playing hard,” Mulkey said. “Even when we're overmatched or the other team is more talented or it might not be our night, those kids play their hearts out for you.
“And I said when and if it ends, there is no bad story that can be written about what you witnessed this year. Other than you're disappointed as a competitor, there is no bad story. It was a community, a state that was starving for something positive and was hungry for something on a national scale that was good. And these seniors gave it to us, the whole team gave it to all of us and gave it to us as a coaching staff.”
Mulkey was hired last April in the midst of the school reeling from a Title IX independent report that was full of embarrassing muck that needed to be cleansed. There was the NCAA investigation hanging over the men’s basketball program.
By the time Mulkey started her first season last November, LSU football was in the toilet and head coach Ed Orgeron agreed to be fired when given a $16.8 million life preserver so he could spend the rest of his days shirtless cruising tropical beach bars.
LSU needed something good to happen in the worst way. Mulkey, a Tickfaw, La. native, truly believed it was her calling to come home after 21 seasons coaching a Baylor program she resurrected from the ashes and turned into an annual national championship contender.
“There is just something in your heart and gut tells you in your career this is where you need to be,” Mulkey said “I don't know of any coach in men or women's basketball that would do what I did, that would leave a dynasty and leave basically a very talented team to come and just say the reason I came is this is home. The reason I came is it felt right.
“I think a lot of coaches are scared. A lot of coaches become content to stay where they are. A lot of coaches, they just don't do what I did, right? But it was the right move for me.
“I wanted to be a positive, I wanted to be a positive for LSU. I wanted to be a positive for the state of Louisiana. And that's why it's so enjoyable.”
The legacy of Mulkey’s first LSU team will be even more obvious in seasons to come when she gets the Tigers their first national championship.
“This bunch jump started this program again,” Mulkey said of her seniors. “It revived it again. It gave everybody an interest. And I'm forever grateful to them. Forever.
“Never had one minute's trouble off the floor. I think about that. Do you know how many coaches can go to work every day and not have to deal with distractions off the floor? Not many. Those seniors were mature. And they just embraced us as a staff and let me coach 'em.”
Even in defeat, Mulkey was happy the seniors finally experienced things they never thought were possible under former coach Nikki Fargas.
“I can only imagine what those kids felt like the last two or three years with nobody in the stands,” Mulkey said. “And what it was like to lose those close games. And then to stay with a new coaching staff, and you preach to them good things come to those who wait, good things happen for those who work hard.
“And for those five seniors to do what they did, I had to remind them in that locker room you were picked eighth in the league, and you finished second. You got as high I think as sixth in the polls. You got to host a regional. You're on a national scale viewed as one of the top 16 seeds in the country.
“It was the first win the other night (vs. Jackson State) for those seniors ever in the history of the postseason. There are so many things that we tend to forget after a loss. They didn't want to disappoint the fans.”
Every LSU senior had the best year of her college career under Mulkey, especially Pointer who is projected as a second-round pick in April’s WNBA draft.
“Coach doesn't want anything from you but just to play hard,” Pointer said. “She keeps the game really, really simple for us. We have a few sets that we run, and then we play hard on defense.
“And when you put that effort and that intensity and that passion and then you have her on the sideline like that just cheering for you, it just makes you want to just go ten times harder.”
Mulkey’s four-player 2022 recruiting class features the No. 6 nationally ranked high school guard and a McDonald’s All-American in the country (Flau’jae Johnson), the MVP of the 2021 National Junior College Athletic Association national tourney won by her team (Last Tear-Poa), the Dallas Morning News Area Player of the Year (Sa’Myah Smith) and Dallas Morning News Area first-team selection (Alisa Williams).
“When we tie those shoes up next year, it's going to take a while,” Mulkey said. “We may not have this record. Oh, my God, what's wrong? Nothing's wrong. We're going to be playing freshmen and sophomores. They got to grow.
“I was blessed to have inherited experience. We don't have that next year. We can get in the transfer portal, and we will. But we're going to build this program with high school seniors as well. And those high school seniors are going to be McDonald's All-Americans. They're going to be the best in the country that we can get in here. But that doesn't make them able to compete immediately against juniors and seniors in the SEC and in the playoffs. It's going to take time.”
Remember that Mulkey said at her introductory press conference when she was hired by LSU that “I don’t want you to be misled to think I can take a team and overnight play for championships.”
Mulkey also said a few weeks ago she made that statement because “I tend to err on the side of caution.”
So when Mulkey says LSU may not have the record next year that it had this season, it means she’ll see you right back here next March with a chance to advance to the Sweet 16 and beyond.
