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REBUILD COMPLETE
from The Reveille 4-3-23
by Reveille
Column: Record-setting performance caps off historic title run
In terms of turning dust to gold, not many come close to Kim Mulkey and the LSU women’s basketball program in the world of college sports.
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Coming off nine wins in the 2020-21 season and the departure of head coach Nikki Fargas, LSU athletic director Scott Woodward pulled off the hire of the offseason by landing three-time national champion head coach Mulkey.
You could say the rest was history.
Despite low projections heading into her first season and a rough, early loss to Florida Gulf Coast, things quickly transitioned in the other direction for the Tigers. In just 11 games, it had surpassed its previous win total, earned its first top-15 win of the Mulkey era and placed in the AP Top-25, as those preseason expectations were aptly forgotten about.
When LSU went into halftime against No. 1 South Carolina with a six-point lead, the team had already proven capable of a championship run, even after the eventual national champions came back and defeated LSU by six. That came in her 16th game with the program, fresh off backto-back ranked wins over No. 13 Georgia and No. 23 Texas A&M.
Ultimately, it surpassed 25 regular season wins for the first time since 2008 and advanced in
BASKETBALL the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014 within her first season with the program. But it still left plenty on the table and the postseason went about as badly as possible.
The last three games of the season went as follows: a 15-point loss to seven-seed Kentucky to start and finish its SEC tournament run, a three-point victory over No. 14 Jackson State in the Round of 64 of the
NCAA Tournament and another 15-point loss to conclude its season, this time against No. 6 seeded Ohio State.
Though that temporarily put a damper on what had been a promising season up to that point, it did little to alleviate the high expectations the team had entering its second season under Mulkey.
Despite losing star guard Khayla Pointer and a multi- tude of other key contributors, Mulkey did what she could to build around the sparse remains from the prior season’s roster.
She paired Maryland transfer Angel Reese, Missouri transfer LaDazhia Williams, West Virginia transfer Jasmine Carson, Ohio State transfer Kateri Poole and five-star prospect Flau’Jae Johnson with LSU’s lone remaining
