The much-discussed Kim Mulkey story from Kent Babb of the Washington Post dropped on Saturday. In the wide-ranging profile, Babb reports Mulkey said in two different emails that LSU star Angel Reese was left off an awards list last year because of her GPA and complained because she was one of her players who “stay on that social media crap.”
It was already known that Reese was left off the Wooden Award list last season because she wasn’t eligible. When the list of 15 finalists was released in March 2023, Reese wasn’t among them despite averaging 23.4 points and 15.6 rebounds per game for one of the best teams in the country at the time.
Per ESPN’s Alexa Philippou, LSU confirmed Reese wasn’t eligible for the list of finalists because she didn’t meet all of the requirements for the Wooden Award. It wasn’t specified which criteria Reese didn’t satisfy.
The criteria listed on the Wooden Award website states candidates must have a cumulative GPA of at least 2.00 since enrolling at their current university, exhibit strength of character on and off the court, contribute to team effort, and excel on offense and defense.
Mulkey said at the time that Reese was “in good academic standing” and her absence from the list may have been due to some other criteria she didn’t meet. “It’s just there’s a criteria on some of these awards like, a lot of them will have community service stuff. Some of them will have GPAs, yeah. She’s academically fine,” Mulkey explained.
Reese missed four straight games this season from Nov. 17-25 for unspecified reasons after being benched during a Nov. 14 game against Kent State for the second half. “I could, but I won’t,” Mulkey said after the Tigers’ win when asked about why Reese remained on the bench. “It was just a coach’s decision.”
Speaking to reporters after a victory over Texas Southern on Nov. 20, Mulkey seemed to indicate there was some sort of locker room issue. “You always have to deal with locker room issues,” she said. “Sometimes you don’t know about it. Sometimes you want to know more than you’re entitled to know. I’m going to protect my players, always. They are more important.”
Amid the speculation about her absence, which included an online back-and-forth between the mothers for Reese and LSU teammate Flau’jae Johnson, Angel Reese wrote on X asking everyone not to believe everything they read.
please don’t believe everything you read.
— Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) November 19, 2023
Reese was back in LSU’s starting lineup for a Nov. 30 game against Virginia Tech. She’s started every game since then and helped lead the team to a win over UCLA on Saturday. In between LSU tournament games last weekend, Mulkey, unprompted, threatened to sue the Washington Post if it published a “hit piece” about her:
“After two years of trying to get me to sit with him for an interview, he contacts LSU on Tuesday as we were getting ready for the first-round game of this tournament with more than a dozen questions, demanding a response by Thursday, right before we’re scheduled to tip off. Are you kidding me?
“This was a ridiculous deadline that LSU and I could not possibly meet, and the reporter knew it. It was just an attempt to prevent me from commenting and an attempt to distract us from this tournament. It ain’t going to work, buddy.” During her press conference on Friday, Mulkey declined to further address the situation:
LSU Head Coach Kim Mulkey was asked if she’s heard anything from the Washington Post since her statement calling their upcoming article a “smear” job from a “sleazy” reporter.
“I did make a statement & that’s all I’ll comment on at this time because all I’m focused on is to win… pic.twitter.com/ChBx35MIfD
— Claire Hanna (@clahanna) March 29, 2024
Mulkey is in her third season as LSU’s head coach. She was hired by the program in April 2021 following a surprising departure from Baylor after 21 seasons that included three national titles. The Tigers won the national championship last season for the first time in school history.
