By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – Kim Mulkey knows what it’s like to build a women’s college basketball dynasty.
In the first 10 of her 21 seasons at Baylor, she won a national championship in two Final Four appearances and averaged 26.4 wins with one 30-win season.
Then, firmly entrenched and finally continuously stacking great recruiting classes creating teams with talent and depth at every position, she won two national championships in two Final Four trips in her final 11 years averaging 33.5 wins with nine consecutive 30-win seasons.
So, when Mulkey, now in her third season as LSU’s coach, says “That’s who we want to be like” when she looks at women’s hoops dynasty South Carolina, winners of its last 146 of 155 games with a national title and three straight Final Fours, she understands what it takes to maintain such consistent dominance.
The feisty, ultra-competitive Mulkey, who took a shortcut to win the 2023 national title in year two at LSU by successfully tapping into the transfer portal, knows after just two full recruiting classes she hasn’t yet built the beast that two-time national championship head coach Dawn Staley has constructed in her 16 South Carolina seasons.
“No one seems to have found the formula to beat them,” Mulkey said of the No. 1 unbeaten Gamecocks (17-0, 5-0 SEC) who face the No. 9 Tigers (18-2, 5-1 SEC) here Thursday at 7 p.m. in a sold-out Pete Maravich Assembly Center. “With new players, South Carolina is as good as it was last year. It just reloads.
“I view this game as a tremendous challenge.
“We’re the underdog (South Carolina is a 3½-point favorite). I love underdog roles. It’s not the end-all. If we beat them or if we lose, life goes on. There are bigger games down the road for South Carolina and LSU.”
Mulkey is 1-4 vs. South Carolina, her lone win coming in 2019 in the Greensboro Regional semifinals when her Baylor team won 93-68 and went on to capture Mulkey’s third national title with the Lady Bears. The Gamecocks won a rematch the next season 74-59 in Paradise Jam.
Two years ago, in Mulkey’s first season in Baton Rouge, No. 1 and once-beaten South Carolina edged No. 13 and once-beaten LSU 66-60. The Tigers, sporting a 13-game win streak, held the lead for almost 21 minutes before losing to a Gamecocks team that won the national title with a 35-2 record.
Since then, LSU has won 33 consecutive regular-season home games.
Last year in a battle of unbeatens in Columbia, No. 1 and 24-0 South Carolina jumped out to an 18-3 lead and was rarely challenged in an 88-64 blowout of No. 3 and 23-0 LSU.
LSU returns two starters from that game (forward Angel Reese and guard Flau’jae Johnson). The Gamecocks return no starters but three reserves off the bench who contributed to that win are now starters.
They are 6-7 senior center Kamilla Cardoso (13.3 points per game, 10.7 rebounds per game), junior guard Bree Hall (48.5 3-point percentage) and redshirt sophomore guard Raven Johnson (9.3 ppg, 5.3 assists per game). Sophomore forward Chloe Kitts (10.1 ppg, 6.1 rpg), who transferred to South Carolina last December and who got token minutes, now also starts.
But the Gamecocks’ undeniable spark is senior guard Te-hina Paopao, a three-time All-Pac 12 selection at Oregon where she started 76 of 77 games.
Paopao, who’s averaging 12.5 points, leads the nation in 3-point percentage (55.8 percent, including 63.2 percent in SEC games), ranks second in the SEC in made threes per game (2.7), fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.4) and sixth in assists per game (4.0).
South Carolina leads the nation in both field goal percentage (52.6), field goal percentage defense (29.4) and 3-point percentage (44.1). The Gamecocks are fifth in 3-point percentage defense (25.8).
The area that decisively separates South Carolina from LSU and most of the nation it has a 10-deep rotation and averages 35 bench points. The Gamecocks, who have eight players averaging at least 15 minutes per game, has a bench that has outscored their opponents’ starters six times this season.
LSU, who lost center Sa’Myah Smith (knee surgery) and guard Kateri Poole (dismissed from the team), has been reduced to a seven-player rotation.
Reserve center Aalyah Del Rosario and backup point guard Last Tear-Poa account for almost all of the Lady Tigers’ 17 bench points per game.
“If you look at our roster and our heir roster, they seem to play a lot more players,” Mulkey said. “If you really break it down, is five minutes playing more players? Is two minutes playing more players? By this stage of the season, you’re probably down to your main players. You can look on the stat sheet to see who’s going to play unless they’re in foul trouble.
“Little by little, I’m becoming more confident playing eight (players). I’ve got five timeouts I’m going to use, and I’ll use them if I have to. If we get fatigued, I’ll just call those timeouts. I don’t like to but maybe I have to sometimes.”
LSU enters the game as the highest-scoring team (tied with Murray State) in Division 1 averaging 91.6 points. South Carolina is fourth averaging 90.8.
In no shape or form is Thursday’s game the 2023 de facto national championship matchup that everyone expected but no one got after Iowa upset the then-defending national champion and unbeaten Gamecocks 77-73 in last April’s semifinals.
That victory, spurred by 41 points from Caitlin Clark, cleared the pathway for a more manageable finals opponent for the Lady Tigers in their 102-85 title game hammering of the Hawkeyes.
The last time LSU scored a victory over South Carolina – 14 straight losses ago to the Gamecocks – no one barely noticed.
A 58-48 Lady Tigers victory on January 12, 2012 in Nikki Fargas’ first season as LSU’s head coach drew no attention since it happened three days after Alabama blanked LSU 21-0 in the BCS national championship football game in New Orleans.
Most of Louisiana was in mourning over the loss of what would have been a 14-0 record and the greatest LSU football season ever at that time.
This time, the Tigers and the Gamecocks matchup stands alone, the last two defending women’s college basketball champions coached by legends who are already in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
It’s why ESPN’s GameDay is making its first trip ever to Baton Rouge for a women’s game. The one-hour pregame show. featuring Elle Duncan, Carolyn Peck, Andraya Carter, Rebecca Lobo, and Holly Rowe, starts at 6 p.m. live from the PMAC before the ESPN game telecast.
“It’s great for LSU because I’ve never had a College Game Day that I’ve been a part of and I think that’s the coolest thing ever,” Mulkey said. “It’ll be one heck of an atmosphere.
“It’s going to be good for us. It’s going to be good for South Carolina. It’s going to be good for the SEC and overall good for women’s basketball.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com