Q and A: Everything Kim Mulkey said after LSU beat Virginia Tech

LSU head coach Kim Mulkey spoke with the media after Friday’s win over Virginia Tech to advance to the National Championship game. Here’s everything she said as the Tigers won in the Final Four round.

Q. Coach, there was a point in the second half it looked like your team was a little low on energy. You pulled Angel out, trying to get something going, I guess. From that point on, what did you see as far as the grit and determination that your team played with?

KIM MULKEY: I thought both teams looked tired. Their adrenaline’s high, and they’re all emotional, both teams trying to do the best they can. I told them in the timeout, I said, your conditioning’s going to play a factor in this game. I said, you can’t run the floor slower than them. You have to beat them down the floor.

Then going into the fourth quarter, we were down eight, I think. The way I approached that was you got two minutes left in the game. You’re down eight. You got to come out smoking and on fire. You got to play like you’re never going to play again.

Not ten minutes. I didn’t want them to get comfortable thinking they had a lot of time. I wanted them to come out, pick the pace up defensively, fly to the offensive boards as if you have two minutes to play.

Then we cut it to two. They call a timeout, I think it was, and I said, okay now, you’re back in the ballgame. We don’t have eight minutes. We have two minutes.

I just felt like we had to challenge them on a sense of urgency.

Q. Coach Mulkey, year two, National Championship. LSU has not been able to get to where you guys will be Sunday. What does it mean to you?

KIM MULKEY: That I’m blessed. I came home for lots of reasons. One, to someday hang a championship banner in the PMAC. Never, ever do you think you’re going to do something like this in two years.

Also keep it in perspective. No team — you think about all the great men’s players that have played at LSU. You think about all the great women’s players that have played. When they told me none have ever played for a National Championship, I was kind of surprised. So that’s an accomplishment. That’s a step in the right direction.

I can’t explain to you unless you’re sitting on the sideline to look across that way and look at the fans. I saw Louisiana Tech players that I coached. I saw Baylor players that I coached. I saw LSU players from last year that I coached, and they’re all cheering for their coach.

It makes you just realize they know what we feel in that moment.

Q. Talk a little about your relationship with Alexis and the fact that you made history with her like full circle coming back, LSU from Baylor, just the whole story. What she means to you as a player.

KIM MULKEY: Some of the things, when I talk to Alexis through the years, I can’t tell you because it’s personal. But one of the cutest — and I won’t tell you exactly, you can figure it out for yourself. But you know as a teacher — I’ll relate it this way.

You have those teachers who want little Johnny. You know who little Johnny is, right? You love little Johnny, but, boy, he annoys the heck out of you. Then you got those teachers, those that want a little Johnny in their class. I didn’t call her my little Johnny, I called her my little something else. Well, she thinks that’s the cutest thing in the world.

When I dismissed Alexis from Baylor, it was just a coach decision, one of those tough ones you have to make. But it wasn’t like you didn’t love her because she was my little — 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.

And when I got the LSU job, she wanted to come back. And the things that she can tell you that you’ve probably already read, I just need Coach in my life. I need her discipline. I need her tough love. I need her direction.

The sad part about it, it’s not sad. It’s typical kids and media and whatever. You’re going to go back and play for a lady that almost ruined your career? Give me a break. Alexis will quickly shut them up and say how did she almost ruin my career? I did it to myself. How many athletes do you know tell the truth like that? It’s always the coach’s fault. Parents, it’s always the coach’s fault.

That’s why she should write a book because she owned her mistake and she just kept clawing to get out of it.

There’s a lot I could tell you about that young lady. I’ve known her since she was in the seventh grade. Her little private school in Beaumont, teachers, they love her. She’s not one of those kids that, when they leave, you go, “good riddance.” She’s one of those that just was immature, and she has owned her mistakes and is a better person because of it, and now she’s being rewarded.

Q. Do you feel like this season was as much a process for you as a coach of putting together a puzzle as any other, considering how many new players that you’ve had and just the amount of time that you’ve been at LSU?

KIM MULKEY: Yeah, it’s a puzzle. It’s crazy I’m sitting up here. It’s crazy we’re getting ready to play for a National Championship. I keep wanting to call somebody and go tell me how we did this in two years. I don’t know.

Got a staff. Got Bob back. He can help me so much with X’s and O’s and film work. We’re playing for a National Championship, guys, and I just got there, wow.

Yeah, nine new pieces. Nine new pieces.

Q. LaDazhia’s impact, not only 16 points, but what she was able to do against Kitley. Just how can you put that into perspective?

KIM MULKEY: I thought LaDazhia was outstanding. The game starts, she’s scoring, she’s defending, she’s blocking out. She was good. And then she picked up the two fouls. Flau’jae picked up the two fouls. They went to a zone. The whole momentum changed at that point. We go in at half down two.

But LaDazhia has been playing like that. This was not just a fluke. She’s been on a tear. LaDazhia’s stock has soared throughout the playoffs. If Alexis Morris isn’t a first round pick, I’m not a WNBA scout, but I know a little bit about basketball. She’s just lightning quick.

Her defensive pressure got us energized in that fourth quarter.

Q. The additional of Poole, I’ve seen her play in Columbus when I covered the team there, her addition to the team has sparked the defensive side. If you can talk about what it was like to recruit her and how special she is to this particular team.

KIM MULKEY: Are you talking about LaDazhia?

Q. No, I’m talking about Kateri Poole.

KIM MULKEY: Oh, Kateri. I don’t even know her by her full name. It’s just, K.P., get over here.

Kateri was at Ohio State. We played Ohio State in the second round last year, and they beat us. She got a full dose of what LSU sounds like, looks like in that PMAC because it was packed.

She went into the portal, and we made a call to her, and I asked her, you’re leaving a team that just beat LSU. You played. And she just said, Coach, I can’t get that noise out of my head. She said, the people, it was so loud. Coach, I just want to be a part of something that’s so appreciative and so welcoming. She said, that was the most unbelievable setting that I’ve ever played in.

She wanted to play some point. She’s been a point guard all her life. As you see, I’ll play her at the point some. And she consequently is how we got Angel Reese. They were buds. And she just casually asked, Coach, would you all be interested in Angel Reese? And we just kind of laughed, like we would tell them no, right?

Yeah, Kateri Poole, I’m so happy for her. And she’ll quickly tell you she’s from the Bronx. She’s proud of being from the Bronx.

Q. What did you see in terms of the fourth quarter, your improvement offensively and defensively after that latter part of the second quarter and that third quarter did not go your way?

KIM MULKEY: Well, I thought we turned it up a notch. I thought defensively we really, really got very aggressive. Alexis started it off. Flau’jae gets the steal and the finish on the other end. You finally started seeing Angel flying to the offensive boards. She’s hard to block out.

And you just started doing some things that we’ve been doing all year. Did that take place because we were down eight and we were desperate? Possibly. Or did that take place because they were getting tired? Possibly. I don’t know how to give you the exact answer on that, but I just know that, when you’re down, you’ve got to do something different, and I just thought we turned it up a notch.

Q. Coach, you had mentioned that you didn’t think you would be here two years. When you came to coach at LSU, did you have a timeline when you thought you’d be back on this stage?

KIM MULKEY: Absolutely not. Even at Baylor, when we won our first one in five years, you can’t do that. Transfer portal affects everything. There’s no way that you can put a timeline on anything. What you do is you try to take one more step. Just one more step. Is that a positive? Are we heading in the right direction?

But, no, you don’t put this kind of timeline on anything.

Q. We heard Angel say that she took it personally that you all were down on the boards at halftime. Was that a conversation you had with her individually or did she just take it upon herself as you were addressing the team? How did you see her let the game come to her as the game went on?

KIM MULKEY: To answer your question, it was a conversation for the entire group. It was a conversation for the entire group, and that was just a small part of the conversation. There were many other things that we pointed out to them.

Took her out a couple times because I didn’t think she was getting up and down the floor. She acted winded.

Yeah, she should take it to heart. That’s what she does. I can’t tell you they were blocking her out all that good. I think she just was letting the game come to her and not being aggressive enough, and she wasn’t in foul trouble.

So I think that, yeah, she turned it up a notch on the boards.