basketball championship game may have been the last time LSU coach Kim Mulkey and Angel Reese have seen eye-to-eye until recently. (Photo by Kristen Young, LSU Athletics)
By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE — The “Where is Angel Reese?” saga is over.
LSU women’s head basketball coach Kim Mulkey announced Wednesday that Reese, a junior first-team All-America forward who led the Lady Tigers to their first NCAA national championship last season, is back in action after missing four games because of an alleged suspension.
“Angel is back, and we are happy, happy, happy,” said Mulkey of Reese, who will be in uniform for Thursday’s 8 p.m. home game on ESPN between No. 7 LSU (7-1) and No. 9 Virginia Tech (5-1) in the ACC/SEC Challenge. “She’s happy, happy, happy.”
Mulkey didn’t say if Reese, who averaged 17 points and 11 rebounds in this season’s first four games before sitting the last two weeks, would be in the starting lineup against the Hokies.
But Mulkey said Reese has been practicing and she should play significant minutes since sophomore forward Sa’Maya Smith is done for the season.
Smith sustained torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral knee ligaments early in LSU’s 99-65 win over Niagara 99-65 last Friday afternoon in the Cayman Island Classic. She was averaging 11.7 points and 7.6, moving into the starting lineup after the Lady Tigers’ season-opening 92-78 loss to Colorado on Nov. 6 in Las Vegas.
“I always say timing is everything in life,” Mulkey said. “It’s just so sad for her (Smith) because she improved by leaps and bounds. She stayed here all summer.
“The timing of Angel being back kind of helps. But there is no substitution for the value Sa’Maya has to our team and what she’s meant thus far.”
Mulkey hinted that Reese had been practicing, even before the team left for last weekend’s Cayman Island Classic trip where the suddenly undersized Lady Tigers won two games, including a scrappy 76-73 win over Virginia on Saturday.
“I’ve coached Angel for a year, she knows our system,” Mulkey said of acclimating Reese in her return to action. “It’s fun to see them (the team) high-five each other, pick each other off the floor and just do what they do – just play basketball.”
Mulkey has discovered much about her 2023-24 team in the first month of the season. The absence of Reese and junior reserve guard Kateri Poole, who also appears to still be serving an alleged suspension after missing the Cayman Islands trip, plus the loss of Smith, has forced Mulkey to use lineup combinations such as four guards and a post player.
Undersized 6-1 junior transfer forward Annesah Morrow of DePaul saved the Cayman weekend for LSU by averaging 32.5 points and 13 rebounds per game. She was named to the all-tournament team, thanks to her 37 points and 15 rebounds in a 3-point victory over Virginia.
Sophomore guard Flau’jae Johnson had 14 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists against Niagara, then as a small forward had 6 points and a career-high 15 rebounds against Virginia as she picked up the rebounding slack left in the wake of the injured Smith’s absence.
“I talked to her (Johnson) about having an all-around game,” Mulkey said of Johnson, “just growing her game in other areas besides scoring. You want to impact the game in other areas when the shots aren’t falling, or you don’t get shot attempts. Flau’jae was just huge (in the two LSU wins in the Caymans).”
Thursday’s game against Virginia Tech is a rematch of the Lady Tigers’ 79-72 Final Four semifinal win last season. LSU trailed 79-70 at the end of the third quarter before the Lady Tigers’ fourth quarter 29-13 closing blitz advanced them to the national title game vs. Iowa.
The 6-3 Reese and the 5-10 Johnson are the only two returning LSU starters this season. Tech’s three returning starters are 6-6 grad student center Elizabeth Kitley (24.3 ppg, 11.5 rpg), 5-6 senior guard Georgia Amoore (17 ppg, 8.2 apg) and 6-foot grad student guard Cayla King (8.3 ppg, 2 rpg).
All eyes will be on LSU’s defensive plan to stop Amoore and Kitley. Amoore was guarded primarily in the Final Four semis by since-graduated Lady Tigers’ guard Alexis Morris, and Reese was on Kitley.
“You can’t guard Amoore with just one kid, I don’t have Alexis Morris,” Mulkey said. “We’re going to have to tag team her a bit.
“I really think Angel will be just like Angel. She’s been really good in practice.”
While Morrow was named ESPN, Associated Press and USBWA National Player of the Week for her play in the Caymans, Kitley earned ACC Player of the Week for the 10th time her career.
Last week in wins over North Carolina-Greensboro and then Kansas and Tulane both in the Cayman Island Classic, she averaged 26.7 points and 12 rebounds and shot 58.9 percent (33 of 56) from the field and 87.5 percent (14 of 16) from the free throw line.
In consecutive games against UNC-Greensboro (31 points, 10 rebounds) and Kansas (312 points, 18 rebounds), Kitley became the first VT athlete in program history with back-to-back 30-point, 10-rebound games.
Had all of LSU’s team been intact since the opening game loss to Colorado, Thursday’s matchup with Tech could have been a measuring stick of the Lady Tigers’ progress.
“Again, keep in mind what we’ve been dealing with,” Mulkey said. “It’s not going to be a polished product. We’ll play hard. I know that.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia.com