The 19th ranked LSU women’s basketball team, with Naismith Hall of Fame coach Kim Mulkey in her first season guiding the Tigers, is opening eyes almost every time it plays.
The 13-1 Tigers, after their 68-62 road win at No. 13 Georgia on Thursday night to open SEC play, are off to their best start since 2009-10 season. LSU’s 12-game win streak is the longest since winning 14 straight during the 2007-08 season.
But now that LSU is in conference play, every biggest challenge to date is the next game and taking on No. 23 and co-defending SEC regular season champions Texas A&M Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center is no exception.
The game is set to be streamed online on the SEC Network + and fans can listen on the LSU Sports Radio Network (107.3 FM in Baton Rouge). Any educators coming to the game can purchase $1 tickets when they show an ID at the LSU ticket office.
LSU accomplished its win at Georgia using basically just six players because reserve guard Rhyann Payne was left at home to heal a grade one ankle sprain. The Tigers had some other players just returning from COVID-19 protocols.
“We knew when we finished that game and went into the locker room, it didn't dawn on us until later what we accomplished,” Mulkey said. “I think there was a sense that we felt like we should accomplish that although we weren't the one that was supposed to win. We feel very confident in our abilities.”
How and why longtime Baylor national championship winning coach and Louisiana native Mulkey has so quickly flipped last year’s 9-13 terrible Tigers into a cohesive, disciplined unit is probably a shock to the average fan.
But it isn’t for anyone who had to face Mulkey in her 21 seasons at Baylor where she won three national championships and 12 Big 12 regular season titles including 11 straight from 2011 through last season.
It’s the way she approaches practice, especially in the preseason and more specifically when she’s coaching a 15-player roster like this year with all but two players who have never played for her before.
“Practice means a great deal to me, particularly when you're a new coach and you inherit players,” Mulkey said. “I learned every day something about each one of them. I'll learn how far I can push one and learn which ones need to be hugged more, which ones turn the ball over, which ones get down on themselves.
“It's looking for little things. Who's my defensive stopper here. Now she gets in foul trouble. Who am I gonna put on her? Those things are stuff that I'm studying every day in practice. I may miss something on an execution of a play, because I'm watching how a kid reacts on something else. That's what you do.”
Mulkey quickly figured out LSU’s three returning graduate students – point guard Khayla Pointer, guard Jailin Cherry and center Faustina Aifuwa – are the heart and soul of the team and has plugged in talented role players around them such as Alexis Morris and Autumn Newby.
“You learn to love each other with time," Mulkey said. "You can't tell somebody you love them and you just met them. You learn to love, you learn to trust, you learn to respect. You learn to have each other's backs and the longer we're together and the more we go to battle with each other. You earn that.”
Nobody on the team has gained more trust from the coaches and her fellow teammates than Porter, who’s averaging 17.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 5 assists. She hit two 3-pointers in the final 2:17 vs. Georgia to push the Tigers into the victory column.
“She doesn't get rattled,” Mulkey said. “She has the ability to get you over the hump. She has the ability to make a big play. When you're a great player, you want to take the last-second shot. You fail 90% of the time taking that last second shot, but you still want to take it.”
Mulkey said the challenge the SEC presents will be on full display against Texas A&M, which plays a vastly different offensive style than Georgia.
The Aggies lead the country in 3-point field goal percentage, hitting 43.5 of their 3s. Four players shoot over 40 percent, led by Jordan Wells who leads the SEC in 3-point percentage (46.8) and 3-pointers per game (2.64).
“They light you up,” Mulkey said. “It’s not how many they shoot, it’s how well they shoot it. We’ve got our hands full, and we feel like we will see zone, zone, zone and zone (defense). He’ll (Texas A&M coach Gary Blair) will press you some, but it’s more of a zone press. His strengths are his perimeter players.”
Blair, 76, in his 37th year as a head basketball coach (8 at Stephen F. Austin, 10 at Arkansas and the last 19 at A&M), announced in October he will retire at the end of the season.
Prior to his first head coaching job at SFA, he was an assistant at Louisiana Tech from 1980 to 1985 where he coached Mulkey as a player when she was Tech's point guard on two national championship teams. After Mulkey became Baylor’s coach in 2000-21, she consistently played against Blair and the Aggies since both were Big 12 members. She is 19-5 vs. Blair.
