The Tigers made a splash in women’s basketball last week as they added legendary former player and 2024 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag] to the staff.
Augustus is one of four LSU basketball players, men’s or women’s, to be honored with a statue outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. She brings coaching experience to the table after two seasons as a WNBA assistant following a phenomenal playing career.
[autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] said that when former assistant coach [autotag]Johnny Derrick[/autotag] — who coached with Mulkey for 24 years dating back to her time at Baylor — retired following the season, Augustus was the first name she and associate head coach [autotag]Bob Starkey[/autotag] considered.
“When (Derrick) came at the end of the season and said that he was definitely gonna retire I had a staff meeting with all my staff, and because I am not in the trenches like they are in recruiting and seeing who the up and coming coaches are, I asked each of them to give me suggestions,” Mulkey said, per On3. “And I think it took maybe seconds for Bob (Starkey) to speak up and he says we need Simone. And I asked him if he would reach out to her to see if there was an interest first before I called her.”
Mulkey later said that the decision was a “no-brainer,” especially with the expected changes allowing more assistants to coach on the floor.
“It’s a no-brainer,” she said. “It was just a matter of changing responsibilities because Johnny’s responsibilities were totally different than what Seimone’s will be. We would not be doing this if Seimone could not be on the floor sharing her knowledge and her experiences not just in college, but in the league, in the WNBA.
“And so with the rules changing in our sport where we can now soon probably have six (coaches) on the floor and in August voting again where we can have the rest of the staff doing the limited roles on the floor, it was just great timing. And so I think that’s what we spent a lot of time talking about is your role will not be what Johnny’s role was, here’s what I’d like you to do and I think that was really really important to her.”
Derrick’s official title with the program was “assistant athletic director for women’s basketball operations,” so Augustus will be taking on a different, more coaching-centric role.
In what will be a year of great change for the program, LSU will hope Augustus’ championship pedigree will help ease the transition.
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