Louisiana State scored a major women’s basketball coup
Sunday when it hired Kim Mulkey, who won three national championships in 21
years at Baylor, as its new coach.
اضافة اعلان
Mulkey’s move, perhaps the most significant coaching change
in women’s college basketball in recent years, sends one of the country’s top
coaches to one of the nation’s deepest leagues, the Southeastern Conference.
The SEC, long a standard-bearer in women’s basketball, sent seven teams to last
season’s NCAA tournament and one, South Carolina, to the Final Four.
Mulkey, 58, is returning to her roots. She grew up in
Louisiana, where she was a four-time state champion at Hammond High School and
won two national championships as a player at Louisiana Tech. She began her
college coaching career at her alma mater, and then went 632-104 at Baylor.
“Kim Mulkey is a champion and a Hall of Famer, and we are
thrilled to welcome her home,” said Scott Woodward, the LSU athletic director.
She will be introduced as the Tigers’ coach at a news
conference Monday.
Mulkey’s playing achievements — which include an Olympic
gold medal in 1984 — were followed by an equally sterling coaching record.
After serving as an assistant at Louisiana Tech, she became the head coach at
Baylor in 2000. The team was coming off a 7-20 season and had never made the
NCAA tournament.
She led the Bears to national titles in 2005, 2012 and 2019.
Mulkey’s teams made one other Final Four and 10 additional trips to the round
of 16. Baylor made the NCAA tournament every year but one during her tenure.
Her 2011-12 championship team, led by Brittney Griner, was
the best of the lot, finishing 40-0.
“She reminded me a lot of my dad — strict and fair,” Griner
said at the time of Mulkey’s coaching style. “There are no favorites. There is
no sugarcoating. She tells you how it is and doesn’t hide anything.”
The only woman to win an
NCAA basketball championship as a
player, as an assistant and as a head coach, Mulkey was inducted into the
Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
“We are grateful for the more than two decades Kim Mulkey
poured into building Baylor women’s basketball to one of the nation’s premier
programs,” said Mack Rhoades, Baylor’s athletic director.
In 2019, Mulkey brought her championship team to the White
House, the first women’s team honored in its own right by President Donald
Trump.
“Would you like to work at the White House, by any chance?”
Trump asked her. “No,” Mulkey replied. “We’ll take you,” Trump said. “We need
the help.”
Mulkey’s success had earned her a $2.27 million a year
contract at Baylor, and LSU was reported to be exceeding that figure to lure
her away. LSU men’s coach Will Wade makes $2.5 million.
Mulkey again comes to a team in need of a turnaround. LSU
made five consecutive Final Fours from 2004-8, but it has not returned since.
In eight seasons under Nikki Fargas, the team made two appearances in the round
of 16. In 2020-21, it was 9-13. Fargas resigned Saturday.
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