LSU's Angel Reese Back After Suspension, But Kim Mulkey Stays In Attack Media Mode | Glenn Guilbeau

BATON ROUGE, La. - What Kim Mulkey needs is a real basketball team to attack.

She and her No. 7, defending national champion LSU women's team will get that Thursday (9 p.m., ESPN). The Tigers (7-1) host No. 9 Virginia Tech (5-1), which LSU beat in the Final Four national semifinal last season in Dallas. LSU then advanced to beat Iowa for the national championship.

What Mulkey does not want is more questions about junior All-American forward, NIL millionaire and Sports Illustrated swimsuit star Angel Reese. That will happen, too, now that Mulkey ended Reese's four-game suspension this week for not playing and practicing hard earlier in the season. Reese, the heart of last year's team and one of the nation's best scorers and rebounders, will play Thursday night.

Kim Mulkey after LSU beat Iowa for the national championship last April in Dallas. (Photo by Justin Tafoya/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

Mulkey will go for her 700th career head coaching victory. At 699-113 (.860 winning percentage) over 24 seasons (21 at Baylor, 3 national titles, 3rd at LSU, 1 national title), she is on the verge of becoming the fastest basketball coach - man or woman - to reach 700 wins in NCAA history. She could do it in 813 games. It took Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp 836 games to reach 700. It took current Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma 822.

Kim Mulkey 'Aggravated' With Questions About Angel Reese

"I've been blessed," Mulkey said Wednesday at a weekly press conference. "I've been blessed to coach great players. I'm so grateful that I was talked into getting into this business. It has the highest of highs, the lowest of lows. But it is a wonderful, wonderful profession ... until I have to deal with y'all. No, that's a joke. I don't mind dealing with you."

But, lately, she has because of questions about Reese, who is the most famous player she has ever coached at the time she was famous. Mulkey coached Brittney Griner at Baylor from 2009-13, but Griner did not reach the stardom outside the game while at Baylor that Reese has at LSU. And Mulkey's problem is she hasn't adjusted her game to the media's and public's desire to know about a player like Reese, particularly when that player is suddenly suspended with virtually no explanation. Not even a cosmetic one.

"I'm waiting for y'all to get past it," Mulkey said when asked if she is relieved to get the Reese drama over for now. "We're past it. We were past it after it happened. Really. It's just fun to watch them high five and pick each other up off the floor and do what they do - play basketball. We've been past it. It's just we have to come in here and answer questions. And that becomes aggravating."

Superstar Angel Reese Returns To Action Thursday

Mulkey makes $3.6 million a year. One would think she could deal with what she refers to as aggravation, which is much fewer press conferences and pointed questions than what most college football coaches deal with on a regular basis.

Even the simplest, basic and surface questions rattled Mulkey on Wednesday as they did last week after LSU beat Texas Southern when she famously said, "Just write what I tell you." She also repeatedly interrupted reporters while they tried to ask questions, or answer her questions, and ridiculed and laughed at other questions all while being combative.

I asked Mulkey how many practices Reese will have participated in before Thursday night's game. I had asked last week if Reese's suspension allowed her to practice while not playing in games, and Mulkey said, "Angel is a part of this basketball team. And Angel will be back sooner than later.”

On Wednesday, Mulkey's answer was, "Angel is available to play tomorrow."

When another reporter asked a question, Mulkey interrupted and returned to the previous question.

"But if you want to know, Angel's been practicing," she said, then took a playful jab. "Do you want to know how many hours, how many days?"

"No, that's good," I said.

"Specifics?"

"No, you're good," I said, trying to cooperate and move "past it."

Then Mulkey ridiculed the question.

"She's not going to just show up tomorrow and play a game," she said.

Right, Kim, that's why I asked the question. I didn't say that in the press conference, because I was trying to be professional.

Brett Martel of the Associated Press also thought that how much Reese has practiced during her suspension was a valid question.

"Could you give us a sense of how long she's been practicing?," Martel, who usually covers the New Orleans Saints and NBA Pelicans, asked.

LSU's Angel Reese Practiced This Week

Mulkey thought this was funny.

"Why would I tell you all that? In all seriousness, what difference does it make? Explain to me why you need to know how long she's been practicing?," she asked.

Ron Higgins, a former NBA writer and Southeastern Conference expert columnist for the Memphis Commercial Appeal now with TheRonHiggins.com and the Shreveport-Bossier Journal, tried to answer.

"Because if she just showed up yesterday," Higgins said, but was interrupted.

"Well, do you think a coach is just going to play a kid that just shows up?," Mulkey asked as she continued to defend my original question without realizing it.

"She might," Higgins said.

"Well, I just told you after he (me) asked if she's been practicing. And didn't I tell you (previously) she looks great out there, right? So, you know she's been practicing by those comments."

Angel Reese was one of the best rebounders and scorers in women's college basketball last season and led LSU to the national championship with a win over Iowa. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

But we don't know when, Kim. So I asked, "Was she practicing before the Cayman Islands trip (over the weekend)?"

"Well, I would think if she looks good, she has been," Mulkey said, again avoiding simply saying yes or no. Wow, I thought Kim didn't drink coffee.

"OK, that's what we need to know," Higgins said.

Mulkey continued to be combative.

"A coach is entitled to play who they want whether they've practiced with the team or not, right?," Mulkey asked.

Right, but you're the one who said Reese wasn't just going to show up and play without practicing. Mulkey really needs a game to coach, because now she's arguing with herself.

"What difference does it make guys?," she asked.

"It doesn't make a difference to you," Martel retorted. "But it does to the public."

And Mulkey started laughing.

"Because we're writing about elite athletes. For example, I cover the Saints," Martel said, but Mulkey interrupted AGAIN.

Kim Mulkey Kept Sparring With Reporters

"So if she looks good, you're going to say she's been practicing with the team the whole time. If she looks bad, you're going to say, 'Oh, coach just threw her out there,'" Mulkey said.

Wow, for someone who just won her fourth national title, Mulkey sure sounds paranoid. And remember, through 23 years of head coaching, it's not like she has received much criticism at all.

But she quickly switched gears like she might change defenses.

"It doesn't matter. Angel is back," she said. "And we are happy, happy, happy. She's happy, happy, happy."

Mulkey, though, was still trying to win the press conference, like so many coaches do, whether they contradict themselves or not.

She touched on the aggravation of questions again and asked me, "What becomes aggravating is what, Glenn?"

I said, "Oh several things," trying to get her to move on. And I was actually writing the Angel Reese returning story while seated at the press conference that went too long. This happens a lot. When news breaks early in a press conference, writers try to publish the story as quickly as possible during the remainder of the press conference.

So, when Mulkey asked me, "Well, tell us, what becomes aggravating?," I said, "I wasn't listening to you. I'm writing the Angel story. Sorry."

Mulkey asked, "So, why are you here? If you're not going to listen to me, why are you here?

And she was right. I should've said, "Could you repeat that?"

Or I could've left, finished the story and come back. But I was in the front. That would've been rude. So, I apologized to her through her media relations director for saying I wasn't listening shortly after the press conference. But that is my only apology.

Mulkey needs to apologize to several reporters for her behavior recently. That comment she made last week, "Just write what I tell you," is disrespectful to our profession, period.

Kim Mulkey dresses as loud as she talks to the media at times. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

At least, she didn't say that again. And some of the powers that be at LSU have not been happy with how she has handled this whole Angel drama.

But she wasn't done on this day. And for someone who just minutes before said she was "past it," she sure wanted to keep talking about it. As her media relations director tried to end the press conference, Mulkey said no. She wanted more questions about the Angel issue she said she had moved past.

"Hit me," she said.

So, WAFB Channel 9 sports director Jacques Doucet said, "There was a debate whether you coming out and saying what it was (that got Reese suspended) might end a lot of speculation."

Very true. This is Media Relations 101, as exemplified in the movie "Clear And Present Danger." Harrison Ford's character advises the president against saying less about an issue as Mulkey has done, and give them more so as to end it.

"Give them no place to go, nothing to report, no story," he said. " I mean, it’s no sense in defusing a bomb after it’s already gone off." The strategy worked in the movie and is usually advised by media consultants, who could open their own building at LSU.

But, of course, Mulkey wanted to hear none of this and promptly interrupted Doucet.

"No, it wouldn't (end a lot of speculation)," Mulkey fired back. "You guys know that. I could give you the exact whatever you were looking for, and there were still going to be things written that you would've interpreted the way you wanted to interpret it."

So, that's it. Kim doesn't want us to even think on our own. How dare we use our brain to interpret something that happens? How dare we write an opinion column? We just need to go with her interpretation. Unbelievable, and again very disrespectful of our profession.

"All I ask as a coach is, if I don’t give you the answer you want, don’t attack me for that," she said. "Don't attack and make it personal. Is that fair? Some of you take it to a personal level. And I don’t understand that. I would never attack any of you for writing a bad article about me if you didn’t think I made the right call. That’s fair game. But to attack somebody on a personal level, am I wrong about that?"

Higgins asked what we several of us were thinking and discussed later.

"How’d you get attacked?," he asked.

"Yeah," Martel piped in. "Could you give us an example?"

I have been critical of Mulkey in recent columns, but "attack?" No way. The problem is she has rarely received much criticism, and is just not used to it.

"Well, they know who they are," she said. "Y'all know who they are."

The "y'all" she is speaking of includes me, but not as far as an "attack." Because other reporters have told me I didn't attack her.

Kim Mulkey Upset With Andscape.com Story

According to sources, Mulkey did not like some of my opinions about her handling of the Reese suspension. But she is more angry about a recent story in Andscape.com, an ESPN website devoted to "sports, race, culture, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and more."

The top of the website featured a picture of Mulkey with the headline, "Kim Mulkey and a history of callousness."

By paragraph four, it asks, "Why would anyone want to play for Kim Mulkey?" I would say, "get better as a player and a person, learn how to work and be disciplined, and win." She won't help you much if you want a media career, but hey she is a great and smart coach and person when not discussing journalism.

The story went on to criticize Mulkey about her treatment of Griner at Baylor and her silence when Griner was imprisoned in Russia. Old topics, but warranted. It also discussed Mulkey's disdain for COVID masking. The writer went on to basically say he doesn't like the fact that Mulkey is a card carrying Conservative.

It also inaccurately said Mulkey is a coach "with a history of cruelty."

That's flat wrong. Mulkey has a Pravda approach to the media, but she is not cruel to players, period. She's not even cruel to reporters.

Could she use some advice from a media consultant? Yes. A good one - if Mulkey let it happen - would make her understand the business and not be so aggravated when issues arise. That could make her focus on coaching more, and less on me.

A good media coach would also help her deal with accurate pieces she does not like, like mine, and with inaccurate, exaggerated ones like the one in Andscape.com.

Mulkey has lost her last two home press conferences. But she has more important battles to win - namely games.

To more of those, and fewer press conferences.