Everything Kim Mulkey said at LSU WBB's first practice
It’s the start of Kim Mulkey’s 25th year as a head coach and with that marks her fourth season at LSU. Fresh off of an Elite Eight appearance and two years removed from a national championship, Mulkey is back at it looking to create another title contender in 2025 after the departure of Angel Reese.
Mulkey met with the media before practice and here is everything she had to say.
Injury report…
“Yeah, Sa’Myah has been cleared to go full speed and should be on the floor today. Aalyah will not, she had her ankle cleaned out. It kind of just kept swelling on her. Also, Izy won’t practice today. She’s got to get cleared by the cardiologists, something is going on with her heart, so you’ll see those two sitting out today.”
On the transfer additions…
“Well, I’m probably gonna forget all of them if I do them individually. What you’re gonna notice is good guards, quickness, kids that can get up and down the floor. I recruited Jersey [Wolfenbarger] out of high school when I was at Baylor and she played in a great program for Ricky Smith and she went to Arkansas and she didn’t finish the year and I contacted her. She came on a visit and she’s here. We’re excited about all the transfers. I think it’s a good mix of transfers, older players with experience, then you add it to the ones that have the experience, and then you look at Jada [Richard], our local young lady. She’s really the only freshman that we have. We’ve got a good little mixture of experience and new players and one young one.”
Mulkey on the makeup of the roster this year…
“I hope it’s athletic. I hope it’s speed and quickness. I think we have more depth of the guard spots. I hope when we get everybody healthy, the post will be just as good as you expect them to be. You know, when Sa’Myah went down, she was almost average in double double. You hope that she can give you that and more. You saw the value of Aaliyah, particularly in that UCLA game when we had to go against Betts. You know what Marrow gives you. You got a senior in Amani and then you add Jersey in there and you can move Jersey and you can move Marrow outside if you need to. So I’m gonna be curious in a month to tell you more based upon what I see every day.”
On Jada Richard surprising people…
“Wouldn’t surprise me. I saw that young lady score almost 40 against Mikayla’s team in high school. She comes from a great high school program. She understands the point guard position as well as anybody I’ve coached. She’s not afraid to be a leader, so it won’t surprise me. I think what you’re referring to is that she didn’t play on the EYBL circuit and I just don’t get caught up in that. I’m more of just watching young people play and you don’t care if they spend all that money playing on all these national teams. If they can play, they can play and nothing I have seen uh from her surprises me. It was everything I expected.”
What keeps Kim Mulkey going?
“I think one, I just have a lot of energy, and I think that if you have that energy, if you’re putting a product on the floor that’s competitive and your health is good, what else am I gonna do in life? I can only hang around my grandchildren so long they still have to go to school. And so it’s fun for me to be challenged. It’s fun for me to get up every day and still feel like I’m contributing something to this game. The hard part is what you said about things changing in collegiate athletics. I’m probably one of the old dinosaurs that’s been able to adapt. and I think some in my age group have gotten out because it’s like, no, I’m not putting up with that anymore. I’ve been able to adapt without changing my philosophies on the floor with discipline, with defense, with rebounding and those things. It’s still college sports. All the other outside stuff got, honestly, I don’t deal with it. I give it to an assistant or an administrator and they allow me just to be a coach.”
Approach to the transfer portal…
“We were looking at players at all positions that can play. Players that want to be here. Players that value defense. Players that understand we’re gonna push you hard. We just didn’t limit ourselves to numbers. We signed quite a few, but you have to remember the program can’t exist or sustain success if all you get every year for transfers. You gotta keep getting those freshmen. The hard part is, you just don’t know every year when you step on the floor if you’re gonna have the same team that you had that finished the year. And that’s what runs a lot of coaches out of the business. It’s like you could get a freshman class and say they’re gonna be good when they’re juniors and they’ve got all this experience. It just doesn’t work like that anymore. So whatever roster you have out there, you gotta go to work right out of the gates.
Mulkey on Flau’Jae’s growth…
I will tell you of her all around game. And I think, when you’re a freshman, you’re scared to put freshmen on the better player on the other team, because they’re freshman. There were moments last year on the perimeter where we could putageé on the better players, but then you had to realize she still a sophomore, and I think now on the defensive end of the floor, I wanna be able to look at her and go, you go guard anybody in our league. and those kinds of responsibilities that I would like to see her say, let me do it, Coach. Can absolutely she can. And she’s done it sparingly in the two years that she’s been here offensively? You saw what she can do. she’s a a long, lengthy guard that can get your rebounds as well.
Mulkey on playing without Angel Reese…
“I don’t think there was ever any pressure even when Angel was here. She had a different personality and I told you many times I coached some big personalities and somebody in this bunch will have the big personality. It might not be in comparison to Angel, but the personalities just kind of rise to the top when they get comfortable and it comes with confidence and it comes with being older, but we’re gonna always play with emotion, we’re gonna always play excited and those personalities will surface.”
On Mikaylah Williams…
“Just leadership. When you’re a freshman, you’re kind of afraid to lead and just go play. She had a great freshman year, SEC player of the year, and we just challenge her to take it to the next level and to be more of a leader, not just by how you play because she does play hard. If you watch us practice, that kid practices hard. She now has to be a leader and that’s probably not fair because she’s just a sophomore, but under the circumstances of what we have on our team, she may have to do more than at an earlier age.”
On the guard rotation…
“We had a staff meeting this morning talking about personnel. I like to talk about it before we get on the floor with them every day and then come back in another month and say, give me your list. I wanna see what you thought was gonna happen with certain players and see how close you were to being correct. You do things like that, but heavens no, I don’t have a clue. You know what you have in Flau’Jae, Mikaylah and Aneesah. You kind of know what you have in Aalyah and Sa’Myah. But all these other ones are new and how are they going to pan out? There’s no way of just projecting that at this moment.”
Does Flau’Jae’s love for basketball get overlooked?
“Not by me. That kid’s one of the more talented kids I’ve ever coached. I think what gets overlooked is I am amazed at how good she is at both and how much time it takes at both to be good, not just average, she’s just good. And she’s just got it all figured out, but she had to figured out when she got here, what she didn’t have figured out is on the floor and stuff like that as far as, you know, popping back up when you get hit in the mouth and things like that. But her work ethic is just incredible. I don’t know that she ever really gets tired. If you remember, I said her freshman year, she thought she’s supposed to play 40 minutes a game and got just so dejected when I would take her out for no reason. And now she’s just moral leader and that kid’s soul is just precious, her heart is just joyous and good and the things I could tell all of y’all about her that she does, you wouldn’t believe.”
Mulkey on the style of play…
“Well, you change based on your personnel. Now, let me make it clear. You don’t win if you don’t have post play, you don’t win if you don’t have shooters and you don’t win if you don’t have good point guard play. That’s never gonna change. What we will do is let this evolve and see do we throw it in there as much as we did when we had the Angel? I hope we can, but I’m gonna go with what can score buckets for you. So we will spread the floor if need be, we will set the on ball screens, we will have post players in there, so let them figure out what it is they do well and it is my job to put them in a position to be successful. but we are tall. Aalyah is 6-5. Samyah pretty tall, she’s just thin. Jersey’s not much below them, so, I’m not gonna make point guards out of those guys. Those guys are gonna want touch and they’re gonna wanna touch the ball in there. So they just gotta finish them, they gotta produce in there.”
