By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – There’s eight weeks between LSU’s women’s basketball team opening preseason practice on Monday and the Nov. 4 season-opener here vs. Eastern Kentucky.
For Tigers’ fourth-year head coach Kim Mulkey, starting her 40th season as a college basketball coach – her 25th as a head coach – it’s always one of her most enjoyable times of the year.
If there’s anything that keeps the 62-year-old Mulkey’s competitive juices flowing, even with four national titles (3 at Baylor, 1 at LSU) and 723 coaching victories on the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2020 inductee’s resume, it’s the annual challenge of piecing together a new team.
“I just have a lot of energy,” Mulkey said in a press conference before Monday’s practice and reveal of a 13-player roster boosted by four experienced transfers including three guards. “If you have the energy, if you’re putting a product on the floor, that’s competitive, and your health is good, what else am I going to do in life?
“It’s fun for me to get up every day and still feel like contributing something to this game. I feel like I’m probably one of the old dinosaurs that’s been able to adapt (to college sports changes such as the transfer portal and NIL deals). I’ve been able to adapt without changing my philosophies on the floor, with discipline, with defense, with rebounding and those things.”
LSU returns four starters from its 2023-24 team that finished 31-6 and lost to Iowa in a regional final, ending its defense of the Tigers’ 2023 national title.
It’s somewhat a reset since forward Angel Reese, the SEC’s scoring and rebounding leader in each of her LSU seasons the last two years and one of the most dynamic yet polarizing athletes in the women’s game, moved on to the WNBA.
Besides Reese’s early season drama sidelining her via an alleged suspension by Mulkey, LSU came up just short last season of a second straight trip to the Final Four because of a season-ending injury in November to sophomore forward Sa’Mayah Smith and inconsistent point guard play at a position that lacked depth.
While returning starters shooting guards junior Flau’jae Johnson (14.7 ppg, 5.5 rpg) and sophomore Mikaylah Williams (14.5 ppg, 4.9 rpg) and senior forward Aneesah Morrow (16.4 ppg, 10.4 RPG) are the heartbeat of the team, it’s Mulkey’s transfer portal shopping that may make the Tigers again a Final Four contender.
Mulkey lost three players to the transfer portal – struggling starting point guard Hailey Van Lith and little-used freshmen Angelica Velz and Janae Kent – and replaced them with a foursome of transfers with a combined 198 college appearances and 117 starts.
Three are guards – senior Shayeann Day-Wilson (Miami/Duke), junior Kailyn Gilbert (Arizona) and sophomore Mjacle Sheppard (Mississippi State) – and junior forward Jersey Wolfenbarger (Arkansas) who Mulkey recruited in her previous head coaching stop for Baylor.
Also, LSU’s lone true freshman is guard Jada Richard, a 5-7 scoring, playmaking whiz from four-time state champion Lafayette Christian Academy where she was the 2024 Gatorade Louisiana Player of the Year and LSWA Miss Basketball, just like Bossier City’s Williams was a year earlier at Parkway High.
“You’re going to notice there are good guards, quickness, kids that can get up and down the floor,” Mulkey said. “We have more depth at the guard spots.”
LSU’s inside game, featuring Smith, returning starting center 6-6 Aalyah Del Rosario, is in a bit of disarray to start the preseason. Smith is coming off knee surgery and Del Rosario is recovering from bone spur surgery in her ankle.
For leadership, Mulkey will be leaning on the fearless and tireless Johnson (“I don’t think she ever gets tired,” Mulkey said) and Williams, who was last season’s SEC Freshman of the Year.
“I’m challenging her (Williams) to take it to take it to the next level and become more of a leader,” said Mulkey, who scheduled a Dec. 8 date vs. Grambling in Bossier City’s Brookshire Grocery Arena as a homecoming game for Williams. “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 of that at an earlier age.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com