Tag: Seimone Augustus

Kim Mulkey says Seimone Augustus’ hiring was announced to the team during awkward Zoom call

It seems the announcement over Zoom threw off LSU’s players.

The LSU women’s basketball program is adding some big-time experience to its coaching staff as former Tigers and WNBA star [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag], a 2024 Hall of Fame inductee, is joining as an assistant.

Augustus brings professional assistant coaching experience to the table in addition to her legendary playing career, but it seems the Zoom call in which coach [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] announced her hiring was a bit awkward.

“The players learned through a Zoom call the night before it was announced. And it was kind of a strange Zoom,” Mulkey said during Augustus’ re-introductory press conference, per On3. “They were quiet and I don’t know if they were quiet because I don’t do Zoom calls and they were thinking ‘How is Coach doing this, who’s doing this for her?’ Or if they were in awe. Some of them clapped and some of them smiled, but it was just — it was really quiet and I thought that was not so typical of my team, so maybe they’re just waiting to see her in person.”

While it may not have been the reaction Mulkey expected, it’s hard not to be excited about the prospect of Augustus joining a staff that already has quite an impressive pedigree.

The Tigers will hope her expertise helps aid the transition for what will be a transfer-heavy roster next season.

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Seimone Augustus describes phone calls that led to her joining Kim Mulkey’s LSU coaching staff

Seimone Augustus explained how Kim Mulkey went about reaching out to her.

LSU made a splash with its women’s basketball coaching staff, adding legendary Hall of Fame former player [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag] to Kim Mulkey’s group.

Mulkey previously went into detail on the process that led to Augustus’ hiring, which she called a “no-brainer,” and at her introductory press conference last week, Augustus further explained how that process played out.

“When I got the call I was kind of shocked,” she said. “I knew Johnny (Derrick) was retiring but I obviously didn’t expect to get a phone call from coach Mulkey. And she did and she said, ‘Baby, Johnny’s retiring, and I’d love for you to have the position if you want it.'”

“We had another call after that that was more in-depth, went into detail about the role… and the third phone call was on a Friday, I called her and she said ‘What do you got for me, baby?’ and I said, ‘I think I’m coming home coach.’ And she said, “You’re going to make me do work on a Friday?'”

Augustus is one of four basketball players (and the only women’s basketball player) with a statue outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. After a storied career in the WNBA ranks, she’s now returning to her alma mater looking to bring it back to the Final Four next season.

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LSU’s Kim Mulkey explains ‘no-brainer’ process behind hiring Seimone Augustus as assisant

Kim Mulkey said it took “seconds” for associate head coach Bob Starkey to suggest hiring Seimone Augustus.

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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LSU draws Seton Hall in Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase

The Tigers will travel to Connecticut in December to participate in another Hall of Fame series event.

The LSU women’s basketball team is heading to Connecticut in December to take part in the 11th annual Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase. The Tigers will face Seton Hall at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Dec. 17.

LSU opened last season playing in a Hall of Fame series event in Las Vegas against Colorado.

“We are really excited to bring LSU to the Mohegan Sun to play Seton Hall in December,” coach [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] said in a release. “We have participated in Hall of Fame events before and are looking forward to do so once again.”

Mohegan Sun Arena is an hour from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, into which Mulkey was inducted in 2020 and [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag] — a former star player at LSU who was hired as an assistant last week — will be inducted in October as part of the 2024 class.

This will be the second meeting between the two teams after LSU won 58-40 during the 2010-11 season. The Pirates are coming off 17-15 season in which they lost in the first round of the WBIT.

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New women’s basketball assistant coach Seimone Augustus explains why she came back to LSU

Seimone Augustus sees an opportunity to help in what will be a year of transition at LSU.

[autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] added to her LSU women’s basketball coaching staff over the weekend, and it’s a name that shouldn’t need any introduction in Baton Rouge.

[autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag], a Hall of Famer after a prolific career in college and in the WNBA, has joined the Tigers as an assistant coach ahead of a 2024-25 season that will feature quite a bit of change.

[autotag]Angel Reese[/autotag] has moved on, and [autotag]Hailey Van Lith[/autotag] left via the transfer portal. There will be a lot of new faces in the rotation next season, and Augustus said helping usher in the next era of LSU women’s hoops after those losses was a major draw in joining the staff.

“The brand is as hot as it’s ever been, all eyes on LSU, South Carolina, some of the bigger names,” Augustus said in a podcast appearance with Chantel Jennings of The Athletic. “But yet, we’ve lost great talent. Angel Reese just went to the league, we had some people jump in the portal. So they’re looking for us, but not looking for us.

“So it’s almost like you get the chance to help them expect the unexpected. They don’t know what to look for, but hopefully we can create a team that’s as dangerous as any other team that we’ve had as far as our approach to the game, the quality of play and the style of play. If you know coach Mulkey’s teams, they’ve always been tough up front, in your face. Like a defensive-minded team.

“So I look to bring my intellect, merge it with coach (Bob) Starkey, we were talking about the things we used to run when I was in school. So hopefully getting to the girls to a point where they’re able to just have the freedom on the floor that they desire to be themselves.”

With Augustus on staff and an experienced haul in the transfer portal, the Tigers look to be poised for another potential deep tournament run next season, even with the losses.

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Kim Mulkey discusses rumors that Seimone Augustus will replace her at LSU

With Seimone Augustus joining Kim Mulkey’s staff, it has certainly invited some specualtion.

LSU women’s basketball coach [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] is showing no signs of slowing as she enters her fourth season as head coach.

But Mulkey is 62 years old and has been a head coach at the college level this entire millennium. She will one day retire, and the Tigers adding legendary player [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag] to the coaching staff last week sparked speculation that it was in a coach-in-waiting role.

Mulkey addressed those rumors head-on, saying Augustus is simply looking forward to learning.

“Obviously with her being an LSU person and playing here and all the things, you know, people are going to automatically think that,” Mulkey said per On3’s Thomas Goldkamp. “But I think Seimone will quickly tell you she’s getting ready to learn from people who have been in the business a lot longer than her, things that I can’t teach her that they will teach her.”

Still, Mulkey said she always wants to see her assistants become head coaches, both ones on her current staff and elsewhere.

“I want all of them that want to be head coaches that when I’m done I want to be able to look out there and go, ‘That’s one of mine over there. Over here,’” Mulkey said. “And they’re all over the country. When you see that, it’ll make you proud.”

Augustus was asked the same question, though she declined to make a grand statement about her hopes at LSU.

“I hope to be a head coach one day, but if it’s here, so be it,” she said. “If not, obviously you see the expansion in the W. It would be great to go back. But day by day, that’s all.”

Augustus is the greatest women’s basketball player to come through LSU and the only one with a statue outside of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Now, she’s trying to build upon her legacy in a coaching role.

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Kim Mulkey is adding WNBA Hall of Famer Seimone Augustus to her LSU staff and fans are thrilled

Coach Money is going back to bayou, and fans are ecstatic.

Kim Mulkey is adding WNBA Hall of Famer Seimone Augustus to her staff, and fans are over the moon about the news.

LSU’s 2023-2024 season wasn’t exactly what it hoped, and without Angel Reese and Hailey Van Lith in the starting lineup, things are going to look much different for 2024. But perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

Head coach Kim Mulkey is adding four-time WNBA champion, three-time Olympian and Hall of Famer Seimone Augustus to her coaching staff. It’s a reunion for Seimone as she returns back to the same place where she spent her college career. According to Andscape‘s Sean Hurd, coaching is something that Augustus has been eying for quite some time now, and she’s got Hall of Fame aspirations for this chapter of her life as well.

Here’s what she told Hurd last year:

“I’m trying to do it all over again. I didn’t know that you could go in [to the Hall of Fame] multiple times – player, coach, whatever. I think it wasn’t until Bill Russell went in there as a player (1975) and coach (2021) where I was like oh, you could do that? I was like, ‘yeah, I’m going back in there.’ That’s my goal, to try and do this all over again. We’ll be sitting here again like, ‘hey, you’re going into the Women’s Hall of Fame and Naismith as a coach,’ hopefully. That’s the goal.”

The hiring has hoops fans so excited, and even current LSU players Flau’jae Johnson and Sa’Myah Smith couldn’t contain their excitement. Here’s how everyone reacted:

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Seimone Augustus joining LSU women’s basketball staff as assistant coach

Seimone Augustus, a 2024 Hall of Fame inductee, will return to Baton Rouge to join Kim Mulkey’s staff.

Entering Kim Mulkey’s fourth season in 2024-25, the LSU women’s basketball team is adding a program legend to the coaching staff.

On Monday, the Tigers announced that [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag], a legendary player both at LSU and in the WNBA who is a 2024 inductee into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, will be joining Mulkey’s staff as an assistant coach.

“It is an exciting day for the LSU Women’s Basketball program to bring Seimone Augustus back to join our staff,” Mulkey said in a release. “As a player at LSU, Seimone helped transform the program as the best player in the nation. She brought LSU to national prominence. She will be a tremendous member on our staff as someone with great experience who has excelled at every level of the game from high school in Baton Rouge to college to the WNBA to the Olympics. Her expertise in the game will benefit our team and allow our players the opportunity to learn from a Hall of Famer who has exhibited great class throughout her entire career.

“Competing against Seimone and watching her play professionally and internationally I was always impressed with her leadership and basketball IQ. Those are the intangibles I’m excited about her bringing to our program.  She has experiences at the highest level of success that will allow her to be an outstanding mentor to our student-athletes.”

A player at LSU from 2002-06, Augustus won the Naismith Award as the national player of the year in 2005 and 2006, and she also won the Wooden Award and Wade Trophy while earning All-American honors in both those seasons.

Her number was retired at LSU, and she’s one of four players with statues outside of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and is the only female athlete with a statue on campus.

The first overall pick in the 2006 WNBA draft, Augustus spent almost her entire career with the Minnesota Lynx except for her last season, which was spent with the Los Angeles Sparks. She’s a four-time WNBA champion, eight-time All-Star and was named the finals MVP in 2011.

She also won three Olympic gold medals competing for Team USA.

Augustus brings prior coaching experience to the table as she was previously an assistant with the Sparks for two seasons from 2021-22 following her retirement. This will be her first foray into college coaching.

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LSU’s Seimone Augustus inducted into Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame

Seimone Augustus becomes the first LSU women’s player selected for the Hall of Fame.

Former LSU women’s basketball star [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag] was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday. She becomes the first-ever Tigers women’s player to receive that honor.

She joins coaches [autotag]Sue Gunter[/autotag], [autotag]Van Chancellor[/autotag] and [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] as well as men’s players [autotag]Shaquille O’Neal[/autotag], [autotag]Bob Petit[/autotag] and [autotag]Pete Maravich[/autotag] in the Hall.

“When you think about all the qualities involved in being a Hall of Fame player, no one checks all the boxes like Seimone,” LSU Associate Head Coach Bob Starkey said in a release. “But what brings me the most pride is that she was a hall of fame person and teammate as well — I know of no one more deserving.”

The Baton Rouge native played at LSU from 2002-06, being named the national Player of the Year in each of her final two seasons. The first overall pick in the WNBA draft, she won four league titles with the Minnesota Lynx before the eight-time all-star finished her career with the Los Angeles Sparks.

She also later spent the 2021-22 season as an assistant with the Sparks.

Augustus’ enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame will take place from August 16-17.

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LSU’s Angel Reese named SEC Player of the Year

Angel Reese becomes LSU’s third winner of the award and the first since Sylvia Fowles in 2008.

LSU’s [autotag]Angel Reese[/autotag] has been named the SEC Player of the Year after once again leading the Tigers to a fantastic campaign.

Reese becomes the third LSU player to win the award after [autotag]Seimone Augustus[/autotag] (2005-06) and [autotag]Sylvia Fowles[/autotag] (2008). She was also named to the First Team All-SEC team by the league along with teammate [autotag]Aneesah Morrow[/autotag].

She’s joined as a postseason award winner by SEC Freshman of the Year [autotag]Mikaylah Williams[/autotag], making LSU the first SEC team to have players win both awards since South Carolina did so in 2015.

Reese led the SEC in scoring (19.1) and rebounding (13.0), becoming the first player to do so in back-to-back seasons since Vanderbilt’s Wendy Scholtens in 1989-90.

Reese has 20 double-doubles in the season, giving her 54 in her two-year LSU career. Though she’s eligible for the WNBA draft, the fourth-year junior has the opportunity to return to Baton Rouge for one more season if she chooses.

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