Kim Mulkey, LSU Women's Basketball Lose Elite Guard to Portal in Stunning Decision

LSU Tigers guard Bella Hines is set to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal after spending one season in Baton Rouge, according to multiple reports.

Hines signed with the Tigers as a Top-25 prospect in the 2025 Recruiting Cycle, but played sparingly across her true freshman season with Kim Mulkey and Co.

The 5-10 combo guard out of Albuquerque (NM) averaged 4.2 points per game this season with the Tigers where her role saw sporadic time on the floor.

She was ranked as the No. 24 recruit in the nation out of high school and was named Player of the Year in New Mexico for two consecutive years across an illustrious prep career.

Hines is the third member of the Tigers 2025-26 roster to hit the Transfer Portal this offseason where she joins fellow 2025 signee Divine Bourrage and senior guard Kailyn Gilbert.

Bourrage, a 5-foot-11 Iowa native, signed with the LSU Tigers as a blue-chip prospect in the 2025 Recruiting Cycle where she averaged 2.1 points per game as a true freshman across the 2025-26 season on Mulkey's squad.

NEW: LSU freshman guard Bella Hines plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal, @TaliaGoodmanWBB reports.

Hines was a 4-star recruit out of high school and averaged 4.2 points per game this year.https://t.co/fb74igIAkq pic.twitter.com/86d2hYDhjO
— Transfer Portal (@TransferPortal) April 7, 2026

With three Transfer Portal entries to this point, Mulkey and her staff will look to reconstruct the roster this offseason amid the departures of Flau'jae Johnson and Amiya Joyner due to eligibility - along with Hines, Bourrage, and Gilbert to the portal.

"I'm not retiring. I plan to hire two coaches quickly. I plan to get in the portal and get two or three more players and take a little time off, go see my grandchildren, who actually flew in and got in late and didn't even see the game. But I'll get to visit with them tonight in the hotel," Mulkey said after the program's Sweet 16 loss to Duke.

"But there is no retiring. I think that's used a lot in recruiting. I think as we get older, as coaches, they want to say how much longer is she going to be in the game? I'm going to be in this game unless LSU fires me, okay, until I can't put a product on that floor that's competitive or my health fails me."

Now, as the offseason continues, the program sits with a trio of portal entries to this point with Hines, Gilbert and Bourrage set to test the free agent market after the market opened for business on Monday.

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