Stephen A. Smith, Shannon Sharpe react to latest Kim Mulkey spat: 'She's very rude'

After LSU‘s season-ending 72-65 loss to UCLA in the Elite Eight on Sunday, Tigers head coach Kim Mulkey had a quick, but heated exchange with a reporter. The awkward moment went viral online.

“That’s terrible, isn’t it?” Mulkey said after the reporter pointed out LSU has lost in the Elite Eight in back-to-back seasons. “How many Final Fours you play in?”

This isn’t the first time Mulkey has had a spat with the media. The three-time AP College Basketball Coach of the Year is never afraid to speak her mind, even if it leads to public backlash. During Monday’s episode of First Take, co-hosts Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe criticized Mulkey for her behavior.

“I’m not gonna take away from the fact that Kim Mulkey is a great coach and an established coach, we just need to finally say this about her: she’s very rude,” Smith said. “She’s rude, she’s condescending and unnecessarily so to too many people, but it’s always with the right one.

“See, she don’t go up to the wrong ones like that. It’s almost like she knows, Shannon, who to do that to and who not to do that to because certain people you do that to, they’re going to clap back at you. But she is a phenomenal coach, one of the best ever, but she’s just a very, very rude person.”

Off-court antics aside, there’s no denying Mulkey’s success. She has won the national championship four times as a head coach and won it once as a player. During her time at the helm of Baylor, she was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year eight times.

She led the Bears to 12 regular-season conference titles and 11 conference tournament championships. Since the inception of the NCAA women’s tournament in 1982, Mulkey has participated as a player or coach every year except in 1985 and 2003.

Alas, Shannon Sharpe believes Mulkey’s success doesn’t excuse rude behavior. Sharpe was especially upset with who Mulkey went after in the postgame press conference.

“I think he said he’s [KLSU], so that means he’s a local reporter, that he talks about the Bengals,” Sharpe said. “Now, I can only imagine, Stephen A., had John Calipari or Rick Pitino addressed a woman reporter with that same tone and said, ‘How many Final Fours have you played in?’ Holy hell would’ve broken loose.

“All he did was ask a question… [Mulkey is] not paid to do pretty good. You’re the second or third-highest-paid coach in women’s college basketball. You’re paid to win and get to the Final Four. I don’t like the way she addressed him because had that been a man addressing a woman reporter in that same tone, everybody wouldn’t have been [laughing].”