Last year en route to winning LSU’s first NCAA women’s basketball national championship, the Tigers flew mostly under the radar.
That is, until they destroyed Iowa, 102-85, in the national championship game.
LSU, because of outspoken coach Kim Mulkey and unapologetic superstar Angel Reese, became the most hated team in college basketball.
No matter how many autographs LSU players signed after road games this season or the limitless pictures they took with fans, they were painted as villains. Social media took tidbits of video or quotes from players and created sensational, misleading mostly untrue posts.
Mainstream media bought in big.
And the 2024 Tigers, under fire daily, have had to have the thickest skin to win 31 games and advance to Monday’s Albany Regional 2 finals vs. Iowa.
Washington Post writer Kent Babb worked for two years on a feature story on Mulkey. She said last week she believed the story was a “hit piece” and threatened to sue.
When the Post published the story two hours before the tipoff of LSU’s Sweet 16 game vs. UCLA, the story was an empty shell of old news.
The genesis was that Mulkey isn’t warm and fuzzy with every one of her former players. Also regurgitated is the fact Mulkey and her father are estranged because she’s never forgiven him for being unfaithful to her mother and getting a divorce.
Also on Saturday, a commentary by Los Angeles Times writer Ben Bolch advancing the LSU-UCLA was so obnoxious and degrading it’s a wonder how it got past Bolch’s alleged editors.
He wrote:
“Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutantes? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce?
“The team that wants to grow women’s basketball or the one seemingly hellbent on dividing it?
“The coach who embraces reporters or the one who attacks them?
“The tender star player or the one who taunts?
“Some might see this as good versus evil. Right vs. wrong. Inclusive versus divisive. There’s little debate as to which side of the ledger Tiger coach Kim Mulkey falls on.”
UCLA head coach Cori Close reposted the article before Saturday’s game on social media. She then apologized late Saturday to Mulkey and the LSU team, saying she only read the column’s headline and not the contents before posting.
The column headline said, “UCLA-LSU is America’s sweethearts vs. its basketball villains.”
And by reading just that, Close still thought it was acceptable to repost such trash on social media?
Mulkey burned Bolch to the ground in her postgame presser. She said googled the phrase “dirty debutantes.” The search revealed the phrase is a category for videos on porn websites.
“I’m not going to let you attack young people, and there were some things in this commentary, guys, that you should be offended by as women,” Mulkey said. “It was so sexist, and they don’t even know it.
“It was good versus evil in that game today. Evil? Called us dirty debutants? Take your phone out right now and Google dirty debutants and tell me what it says. Dirty debutants? Are you kidding me?
“I’m not going to let you talk about 18- to 21-year-old kids in that tone.”
By late Saturday night, the Los Angeles Times had removed most of Bolch’s demeaning phrases. The story included a disclaimer that the commentary had been edited because it didn’t meet the newspaper’s editorial standards.
You mean that journalism ethic in which you can’t refer to women’s college basketball players as porn stars?
LSU guard Hailey Van Lith, a white woman, said Sunday the hate toward her and her teammates hasn’t just been sexism, but it’s also been heavy on racism.
“We do have a lot of Black women on this team, and unfortunately, that bias does exist still today, and a lot of the people that are making those comments are being racist towards my teammates,” said Van Lith. “I have a duty to my teammates to have their back. Some of the words that were used in that article were very sad and upsetting.
“Calling us the dirty debutantes, that has nothing to do with sports. That’s not motivating. But in my opinion, I know for a fact that people see us differently because we do have a lot of Black women on our team who have an attitude and like to talk trash and people feel a way about it. At the end of the day, I’m rocking with them because they don’t let that change who they are. They stay true to themselves, and so I’ll have their back.”
Anyone questioning the character of Van Lith and her teammates should know that they read the hurtful article before Saturday’s game.
“I wish we hadn’t read it because that can crush your soul a little bit that someone would ever say that about us that doesn’t know us,” Van Lith said.
And then LSU went out and put together a 14-2 closing run in the final 2:45 to beat UCLA 78-69.
THAT is character.
Win or lose against Iowa when the entire country (except for Louisiana) is pulling for Iowa’s ponytail princess Caitlin Clark and her teammates to give the Tigers their comeuppance, Mulkey’s 2024 team will always be remembered for standing their ground and not bowing to the poison pens.