When Kim Mulkey was introduced as LSU’s new women’s head basketball coach last April 26, she did her best to douse the raging fire of enthusiasm of someone who has been a part of six NCAA national championships as a head coach at Baylor and as an assistant coach and a player for Louisiana Tech.
“I don’t want you to be misled to think I can take a team and overnight play for championships,” Mulkey said.
Mulkey was trying to be honest in her assessment of taking over a program that had never finished better than fourth in the SEC in all nine seasons under previous LSU coach Nikki Fargas.
But for anyone who has ever watched Mulkey coach with the same unbridled passion she channeled as a Hammond High and Tech point guard, you knew she was underselling herself.
You can’t predict injuries or COVID or whether team chemistry will remain steady in those stretches when it seems like the season is about to be flushed down the drain with two or three consecutive losses.
That said, after watching the 19th ranked LSU women lead 13th ranked Georgia Thursday night from almost start to finish in a 68-62 SEC opening road win and improve to 13-1, Mulkey's renovation project appears ahead of schedule.
The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2020 inductee has taken three graduate students off last year’s hopelessly bad 9-13 LSU team, blended them with another grad transfer, two fifth-year seniors (one a transfer), a senior in just her second year at LSU and handful of returnees into a cohesive, dangerous unit.
“They’re really good, they’ve got a really good team,” Georgia coach Joni Taylor said of LSU. “They’ve got experience, elite guards, size. We knew it was going to be a battle.”
Mulkey and her staff have instilled confidence by learning each player’s strengths and weaknesses, and then putting them in roles accentuating their positives and disguising their negatives.
The foundation of her program is built on pure, old school basketball fundamentals honed in daily drills. Mix that with supreme physical conditioning and mental toughness and you get a team that basically controlled its SEC opener sans some shaky second half moments when the Tigers’ offense was temporarily cooled by Georgia switching to a zone defense.
A 16-point lead disappeared, but something unusual happened.
Mulkey didn’t call a bunch of timeouts while her team was collapsing. She trusted her lineup deep in experience and let them navigate through their implosion.
Even after Georgia jumped ahead for the first time on the night with 6:56 left to play and traded the lead with LSU three more times, it was the Tigers’ grad student returnees point guard Khayla Pointer, center Faustine Aifuwa and guard Jailin Cherry who answered the bell.
Pointer, Aifuwa and Cherry, who each have improved immensely in just a few months under Mulkey and her staff, accounted for 10 of LSU’s last 13 points.
“Big time players make big time plays,” Mulkey said of Pointer.
"So, let's go through that stretch where we're losing the lead and the (home) crowd is into it. She (Pointer) turns it over. She misses two free throws. She gets a shot blocked. What does she do? She comes right back and basically wins the game when she hits a big-time three."
Actually, Pointer hit 3’s with 2:17 left for a 62-60 lead and with 1:01 remaining for a 65-62 advantage.
“Great players have to have a short memory,” Mulkey said. “They can't be afraid to fail.”
And great coaches must have faith that they’ve taught their players to handle their individual responsibilities for the good of the team.
LSU’s box score reflected as such vs. Georgia in which the Tigers played just six players extensively with the starters accounting for all but two of LSU’s 65 points.
Pointer had a team-high 21 points, hitting all 4 of LSU’s 3-pointers. Aifuwa and grad transfer forward Autumn Newby handled the paint, combining for 26 points (on 12 of 17 field goals), 19 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals.
Cherry had 10 points, employing her usual fearless drives and stop-and-pop mid-range jumpers which LSU men’s players would benefit from copying. Also, fifth-year senior transfer Alexis Morris filled the stat line with 8 points, 4 rebounds and team-highs of 6 assists and 6 steals.
It’s true that LSU benefited from the absence of Jenna Staiti, Georgia’s leading scorer and rebounder, who was unavailable due to COVID health and safety protocols. But the Tigers didn’t have key reserve guard Ryann Payne available.
“I told them that was as fun and as good a win as I've ever had as a coach,” Mulkey said of her postgame speech to her team. “A first SEC win, but it's not about me.
“It's their first SEC win with a new coach. A change in philosophy, a change in staff. . .you're playing the number 13th ranked team in the country. You know, I just was so proud of them. We pretty much handled the whole game.”
