Photo courtesy of LSU Athletics
The LSU women’s basketball team earned its biggest road win of the season on Sunday in Lexington. The Lady Tigers trailed by 16 points late in the 2nd quarter but went on a huge run in the third quarter to rally past the Wildcats 65-58 for Coach Kim Mulkey’s 750th career victory.
LSU trailed by 12 points at halftime, but the seventh-ranked Tigers outscored Kentucky 23 to 6 in the third quarter.
The Hall of Fame coach said they didn’t make any crazy adjustments at halftime.
“We picked them up full court press, all of them, but that’s the only thing we changed from an Xs and Os point of view is I just said pick them up full court and we were able to cut into the lead early in the third quarter and that gave us a little momentum to keep going.”
Kentucky’s leading scorer Georgia Amoore did not score in the 3rd quarter and was held 16 points, three below her scoring average.
Mulkey gives credit Shayeann Day-Wilson for keeping Amoore in check.
“She focused and listened to little things that I wanted her to do; deny the ball back to her once she gives it up in the half court, pressure her in the full court so that, yeah, at least worrying her that maybe she’ll miss a three because she’s just a little bit winded or fatigued.”
LSU’s big three led the way offensively again. Aneesah Morrow had 12 points and 10 rebounds, Flau’Jae Johnson had 13 points and 13 rebounds and Mikayla Williams led all scorers with 24 points on 10 of 21 shooting. Williams’ second three-pointer of the game with 49 seconds left put LSU up by four points.
The win improves LSU’s record to 26-2, 11-2 in the SEC and Mulkey believes her team is flying under the radar.
“You better not overlook us, people forget we’ve only lost two ball games and we’ve only lost to two Top 5 teams on the road at their place, one was a one-possession game we lost basically and one was a three-possession game,” Mulkey said. “We just battle and we grind, we got kids that our competitors in that locker room, and we are having a tremendous year.”
And Mulkey continues to add to her legacy as Sunday’s victory marked the 750th in her career.
She didn’t even know that she hit that milestone until she looked up and saw a couple of players wearing T-shirts that said 750 victories while they were praying in the locker room after the game.
Mulkey also received a water bottle shower when she entered the locker room after the game.
During the postgame interview, she took time to reflect on her career.
“I was never going to be a coach,” Mulkey explained. “My degree is in business administration. I was working on my MBA and got talked into doing this by the president of Louisiana Tech (Dr. F Jay Taylor). I guess that man knew more of what I needed to do than I did. It’s a blessing. You don’t win games and championships without great players.”
LSU will try to win Mulkey her 751st game on Thursday when the Lady Tigers head back on the road and face 18th-ranked Alabama.
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