Scott Rabalais: With Kim Mulkey, a smart bet was a quick return to the Final Four

So LSU hit the recruiting trail and transfer portal hard, landing the All-American forward Reese from Maryland, forward LaDazhia Williams from Missouri, guards Jasmine Carson from West Virginia and Kateri Poole from Ohio State, and SEC freshman of the year Flau’jae Johnson, among others. Nine new faces in all that had to, in the words of the LSU team motto for 2022-23, “piece it together.”

“I don’t know how to explain that other than the transfer portal gave us a quick start,” Mulkey said Monday on the “Paul Finebaum Show.” “To take that many personalities, that many new players, and tomorrow we head to Dallas, it seems strange but kind of comfortable, too.”

Morris knew what could be. Most of you know her story by now. She played for Mulkey at Baylor, got kicked off the team, went to Rutgers, nearly quit basketball, bounced over to Texas A&M, then asked Mulkey for a second chance when she arrived at LSU.

“Coach Mulkey is the plan,” Morris said. “You’ve got to buy in. When you’ve got a coach like coach Mulkey who’s proven and she’s been doing this, you’ve just got to buy in and commit to the system and the plan. That’s all we did. This is the outcome. This is the results.”

What is it about Mulkey? Starkey, who has been on the staff for all six of LSU’s Final Fours and was interim coach for the Tigers’ 2007 run, said part of it is her organization and attention to detail. Everything matters.

It’s not unlike what LSU fans once saw here from Skip Bertman when he was the baseball coach, checking the Alex Box concession stands and restrooms personally to make sure everything was just so.

Of course, every great coach has to have talent. LSU has that, but players with outsized personalities, too, like Reese, the “Bayou Barbie,” and Johnson, the burgeoning rap artist.

Mulkey suggested not every coach would have tackled this blend and tried to shape it into a winner.

“A lot of my coaching friends said, ‘Man, you’ve got a locker room full of personalities. How are you going to handle that?’ And I said, ‘Do you know me very well? Bring them on,’ ” Mulkey said after the game.