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Sunday’s final score was LSU 102, Iowa 85.
That now makes four times that Louisiana native and women’s college basketball coach Kim Mulkey has led her team to a national title. Mulkey is now a perfect 4-0 when coaching her team in national championship games.
She also won two more national titles during her years as a point guard for Louisiana Tech. The fiery 5’4” Mulkey has been part of six college national championship teams as either a player or head coach.
If you go back to her high school days in Hammond, Louisiana, you can tack on four more state championships, too! Did I say that she was valedictorian of her high school graduating class? Of course!
Prior to Sunday’s incredible win by LSU, Coach Kim Mulkey had previously led Baylor to national titles in 2005, 2012, and 2019 during 21 years at the Waco, Texas school.
In the year Kim Mulkey arrived in Baton Rouge to take the reins of the women’s program two years ago, the LSU Lady Tigers had won just nine games that season.
After just two years, Coach Kim Mulkey’s LSU team has won 60 games and lost only eight. This season’s national championship team finished the year with a gaudy 34-2 record.
LSU’s only two losses came in games at defending national champion South Carolina and at the SEC Tournament against Tennessee. In the SEC tourney loss to the Vols, LSU blew a 14-point halftime lead and lost the game by two points.
It was a lesson they would not forget.
LSU won its first four games in the NCAA March Madness tournament to reach the Final Four. The national media said that LSU had just a 5% chance to win two games and a national title.
Coach Kim Mulkey likely made sure that her LSU locker room was well aware that the media didn’t believe in them.
In Friday’s national semifinal, the Lady Tigers took out #1 seed Virginia Tech 79-72. In the other semifinal, #2 seed Iowa surprised formerly unbeaten South Carolina 77-73.
Once LSU and Iowa advanced to the championship game, the television and media talking heads said that Iowa should be a prohibitive favorite in Sunday’s title game. If Iowa could take down #1 South Carolina and end their two year winning streak, then LSU should be a breeze. After all, Carolina blew-out the Lady Tigers 88-64 in Columbia back in February.
The media apparently forgot one very important thing. LSU had Kim Mulkey as their coach, and Iowa did not.
Coach Mulkey wasn’t pleased by the lack of point production from LSU’s bench players in the national semifinal game against Virginia Tech. She challenged her second unit to hit more outside shots as Iowa would likely allow LSU plenty of room to take them.
During Iowa’s semifinal upset of South Carolina, the Hawkeyes decided to play a tight zone defense against the taller Gamecocks. In fact, Iowa packed the lane using four large players and dared South Carolina’s guards to take and make wide open outside shots.
The strategy worked.
Despite being outrebounded 49-25 by the taller Gamecocks on Friday night, Iowa’s zone defense completely took Carolina out of its normal scheme. Guards who normally lofted passes to the big players on the inside couldn’t get the ball to them. The Gamecock guards reluctantly took those wide open shots and missed most of them.
South Carolina converted went just 4-20 from beyond the three-point line in a six-point loss.
After Iowa’s zone defense maneuver took down #1 overall seed South Carolina, there was no reason to think the Hawkeyes would not employ the same strategy against LSU on Sunday. After all, the Lady Tigers’ outside shooting percentage had been a weakness all season, too.
Oddly, some of the players on the LSU women’s team felt like Iowa had “disrespected” South Carolina on Friday night with their zone defense tactic.
I disagree. You do whatever it takes to win. Carolina’s ability to dominate inside the paint is the reason why they were 32-0 heading into their semifinal match-up with Iowa last Friday.
LSU Coach Kim Mulkey knew that her second unit had some of the team’s best outside shooters. Early in the first half of Sunday’s championship game, Mulkey pushed the right coaching buttons once again.
She inserted senior guard Jasmine Carson into the game.
Carson responded by having her best game of the season – all in the first half!
She came off the bench to knock down all five of her 3-pointers as LSU pounced on Iowa early and raced to a surprising 59-42 halftime advantage. A graduate student at LSU, Jasmine Carson had played two years at Georgia Tech and two more at West Virginia. With a final year of eligibility remaining, Carson transferred to LSU.
Jasmine Carson had been averaging just eight points per game coming off the bench. Iowa never factored her into the game plan against LSU. By scoring a season high 21 points, Clark jump started the LSU offense when it was needed the most.
Racing off the court at halftime with a 17 point lead, LSU’s veteran squad quickly remembered their stinging loss to Tennessee recently after losing a double digit halftime lead. The team refocused on one more half of basketball still to be played.
As Iowa mounted an early challenge in the second half, another senior transfer guard took over for LSU.
A Texas product from Beaumont, Alexis Morris had originally signed to play college basketball for Kim Mulkey at Baylor. Just weeks before the start of Morris’ sophomore season, Coach Mulkey dismissed her from the Baylor basketball team. A media report later indicated that Morris had been arrested for assaulting another woman in a dorm room at the school.
Coach Mulkey said this about Morris:
“When I dismissed Alexis from Baylor, it was just a coach’s decision, one of those tough ones you have to make. It wasn’t like you didn’t love her … but it was the right decision. Not just for my team at Baylor at the time; it was the right decision for that young lady.”
Alexis Morris transferred to Rutgers in New Jersey. Forced to sit out a year after transferring, Morris played sparingly in just one season.
Next, Morris transferred once again and returned to her home state at Texas A&M. As a junior with the Aggies, Alexis Morris came off the bench in most games and averaged only six points per game in the 2020-2021 season.
Once Kim Mulkey took the LSU head coaching job in 2021, Alexis Morris let the new coach know that she would like a second chance to come play for her. This time, it would be in Baton Rouge.
Alexis Morris said that Coach Mulkey may have mellowed just a bit at LSU:
“One thing I haven’t seen change about her is her will to win, how she pushes us and gets the best out of us. Never let us get the big head. She was definitely way more feisty when I was a freshman [at Baylor],”
This year’s championship team at LSU featured yet another transfer.
Angel Reese has been the “center” of attention for much of this past season.
The Baltimore high school sensation played her first two years close to home at the University of Maryland. She watched many of her teammates graduate or transfer to other schools. A highly recruited high school athlete, Reese considered transferring to South Carolina but fell in love with LSU and the program which Kim Mulkey was building.
What LSU fans didn’t realize this year was their new basketball center was colorful, emotional, and (by women’s standards) a rather proficient trash talker on the court. Though “Bayou Barbie of Baton Rouge” is also known for her fashion statements, her feisty attitude on the court had been honed on the playgrounds of inner city Baltimore.
During the final minutes of Sunday’s championship game against Iowa, Angel Reese went too far. She directed a few juvenile taunts directed toward Iowa’s All-American Caitlyn Clark. Regardless of whether Caitlyn Clark did a similar stunt to a previous opponent, Angel Reese is responsible for her own actions. She opted to go lower.
Momma SwampSwami often told her sons, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”.
There is another important person at LSU who was thrilled for Coach Kim Mulkey and her national championship basketball squad.
Sunday’s national championship title served to validate the “purple and golden” touch of LSU’s current Director of Athletics, Scott Woodward.
Woodward signed Coach Kim Mulkey to a long-term contract in 2021. That deal keeps her at the school through the remainder of this decade. Coach Mulkey earns a base salary of about $2.5 million annually. With the financial bonuses which her contract provides with each successive post-season victory, the LSU women’s basketball coach will pocket nearly $500K in extra pay soon.
Kim Mulkey’s wardrobe budget has grown exponentially with the bonus money. Already known for her stylish fashion statements along the sidelines, the LSU coach will reward Baton Rouge basketball fans next year with another season of her unique styles.
After Sunday’s national championship, Louisiana native Kim Mulkey has become even more popular than she already was.
If she decided to enter this fall’s Louisiana governor’s race, I believe that Kim Mulkey would be the odds-on favorite to win. Don’t laugh! She would be a big improvement over most of the state’s top officials in the past several decades.
In the immortal words of the popular 1970’s television philosopher Mr. T, I pity the fool who would consider running against her.