The cover of the current LSU women’s basketball media guide is stamped with the words “Welcome to the show” on a pretend theater marquee.
We’ve been mesmerized by the show all season long. Kim Mulkey’s electric outfits, including the sequined pink jacket she tossed to a surprised fan after one game. Angel Reese, her penchant for double-doubles and her highly marketable Bayou Barbie nickname. Alexis Morris’ cut diamonds glare.
Show’s over, in a sense. After a 27-1 regular season that included only a loss to lone unbeaten South Carolina and a 1-1 record in the Southeastern Conference tournament, the big dance is here.
The NCAA tournament. March Madness. The three weeks, fair or not, where a team’s legacy is written.
Struggled in the regular season to double-digit losses? Won all but a couple of your games? All that anyone wants to know is did you cut down nets in the NCAA tourney, either to reach the Final Four or to win it all.
Did you hang a banner?
Did you write history?
This time of year is what made Mulkey’s legend as a French-braided point guard at Louisiana Tech and as a coach at Baylor. A parade of Final Four appearances and national championships so numerous it’s like she had her own spot in the game’s ultimate weekend like her reserved parking space at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Now she’s at LSU, succeeding rapidly at restoring the program’s former glory. They just put up a statue to Tigers great Seimone Augustus in January outside the PMAC. Before Mulkey is through, she or one of her players may require one as well.
“We’re on a fast track,” Mulkey said after an NCAA watch party at the PMAC where fans and her team saw LSU will be the No. 3 seed in the Greenville 2 regional and will open Friday against No. 14 Hawaii. “Sometimes that blinds the media and fans on what we really should be achieving.
“It doesn’t blind me. I know what our strengths are and how hard it is to build a program. We’re way ahead of schedule.”
No one, not even Mulkey, could have envisioned that in her first two seasons in Baton Rouge the Tigers would go from winning nine games in the last season under Nikki Fargas to going a combined 54-8 and being worthy of back-to-back regional No. 3 seeds, of back-to-back years hosting NCAA first- and second-round games. This is what the great programs, the South Carolinas and UConns and Stanfords, do every year. It’s what LSU must do on a regular basis to be regarded on their level like back in the Augustus days.
That Mulkey is still spinning a cautionary tale is not surprising. That’s been her message for her entire time in Baton Rouge so far. She reminded again Sunday that her first goal last season was to get a 10th win to eclipse what LSU did the year before.
“The schedule was already made,” she said. “I couldn’t look at Johnny Derrick (now her director of operations) and say, ‘Get me 10 wins.’ You’ve got to take baby steps before you can run and jump.”
That of course is the public line Mulkey has to take. Note she also doesn’t admonish Morris, a Texas native, for saying she wants her senior night to be in Dallas at the Women’s Final Four. You can bet in the locker room and film room she is challenging her team to do something great. We got an inkling of that when she was asked about how intense LSU’s practice and film sessions have been since losing to Tennessee in Greenville in the SEC semifinals.
“Everyone’s healthy,” Mulkey said. “But mentally I think the first two days off they weren’t real happy by the time we got in the film room.”
Is this LSU team going to win the national championship? No, but neither is any of the other 67 teams in the NCAA field not named South Carolina. But this LSU team has eclipsed everything last year’s team did: going from 26 to 28 wins. Going from 13-3 in the SEC to 15-1. Being 1-1 in the SEC tournament rather than one-and-done.
Now the stated goal is to get to the Sweet 16, something the Tigers didn’t do last year, losing in the second round to Ohio State and then-Buckeyes and now-LSU guard Kateri Poole.
Progress. Baby steps. Patience. That’s the Mulkey mantra.
Everyone outside the team probably should listen to her, but the phrase “deaf ears” comes to mind. The success LSU has already had this season has drowned out patience and reason.
Everyone wants to see how much more of a show these Tigers still have in them. It would be foolish to bet on “very little.”
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