With LSU’s win over Iowa to capture the program’s first national championship, coach [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] joined an exclusive club. She becomes just the third coach after Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt to win at least four national titles, and she’s the first coach to win titles at two different schools.
After a perfect culmination to a special tournament run, Mulkey joined the ESPN broadcast for an emotional interview.
“I think I lost it with about a minute and a half left,” she said. “I was holding it in, holding it in, and then I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was trying to squeeze my nose, anything I could do and it wouldn’t stop.
“And I just looked across at those LSU fans and Flau’Jae (Johnson) and Angel (Reese) looking at me, and I’m just like ‘This game’s not over but I think we’re fixin’ to win it!'”
All of the feels pic.twitter.com/BkcBcexN5B
— LSU Women's Basketball (@LSUwbkb) April 2, 2023
Mulkey offered praise specifically for the play of LSU’s bench, which contributed 14 points while having to see a lot of action due to foul trouble.
“I’m still emotional, I don’t even have the words to give you any logical explanation for how we did it other than talent that came together and let me coach them,” she said. “And I’ve got to give credit to our bench… I got on them in the semifinal game. I was hard on them, they hurt us. But they took it like troopers, and they won the game for us today.”
Mulkey was asked how she motivated the team before the game, but she said she doesn’t opt for pre-planned hype speeches. Instead, she did something a bit more unorthodox.
“You want me to tell you what I did? I walked in there and I said, ‘Play that funky music, white boy!'”
LSU has a proud women’s basketball history. Prior to the season, the program had reached the Final Four five times. But now, for the first time, a basketball national championship banner is going up in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, and Tigers fans have Mulkey’s rapid turnaround to thank for it.
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