Kim Mulkey explains why she did not watch film from LSU's first round game
LSU coach Kim Mulkey was frustrated by her team’s play in its opening game of the NCAA Tournament against Rice. The Tigers turned the ball over 24 times and were in a tight battle for most of the game, before earning a 70-60 win.
However, Mulkey didn’t spend much time worrying about what went wrong against the Owls. Instead, she immediately turned her attention to Middle Tennessee State, a team the Tigers will face off against on Sunday, with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line.
LSU didn’t even watch film of Friday’s opening round game, opting to flush the performance instead of harping on it. Mulkey met with the media on Saturday and explained why.
“Oh, Lord, I didn’t go back and watch that,” Kim Mulkey said. “Middle Tennessee’s too good for me to worry about what happened yesterday.”
Middle Tennessee State upset No. 6 seed Louisville, keeping LSU star Hailey Van Lith from facing off against her former team in the second round. Mulkey and the Tigers have had all of their attention on the Blue Raiders for the past couple of days, not on what went wrong against Rice.
“No, we’re watching Middle Tennessee as soon as that game was over,” Mulkey said. “We don’t even talk about that game. No, I don’t want to go back and look at that.”
Kim Mulkey expresses frustration with LSU after NCAA Tournament win
Kim Mulkey might not have gone back and watched the film of LSU’s opening game of the NCAA Tournament against Rice, but she still knows what went wrong.
“That’s not the same team that LSU put on the floor in the championship of the SEC tournament,” Mulkey said. “We don’t have much time but that was a bad performance today, and I thought it was a lot of selfish play today. It starts with me getting them ready.”
The 24 turnovers were the biggest issue for the Tigers. SEC Player of the Year Angel Reese had 6, while Van Lith and Mikaylah Williams had five each. That won’t cut it as the games get more difficult.
“Your goal is to survive and advance, and we did do that with an ugly performance today,” Mulkey said. “You can’t win in sports turning the ball over like we did. You can shoot bad. You can have off nights from the foul line. But you can’t win turning the ball over, and we were turning the ball over like we’d never seen one before.
“I think some of it is maybe [because] we’ve been off 10 days. Some of it is selfishness. Some of it is maybe they just thought they were going to show up today and win. I don’t have the right answer. I can give you lots of answers, but we better fix it before we play Middle Tennessee.”