What She Said: LSU's Kim Mulkey Discusses Loss To South Carolina

No. 9 LSU fell short against No. 1 South Carolina on Thursday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in an instant classic.

Mulkey addressed the media following the Top 10 showdown to discuss the game.

Here's everything Mulkey said:

On what went wrong in the final minutes of the fourth quarter...

“When you don’t have Angel Reese on the floor the last four minutes of the game, it takes you out of your rhythm. It takes you out of your confidence zone. I don’t think I put her back in the game too early. She fouled out with four minutes to go, so she would have been in there if I had put her in with five minutes to go. I thought the game came down to exactly what it usually does. It’s just toughness. It’s experience. That was a good basketball game. Our kids fought really hard. And the crowd was outstanding. It was a great atmosphere. And when you don’t have your All -American on the floor to rebound first and to guard Cardozo as well, I thought we battled and did about as well as we could. This game comes down to possessions. At the end of the first quarter, we gave up a three. At the end of the second quarter, we went in too early. They come down, they hit a three. I thought that when we came out in the third quarter, they were tougher than we were. The first five minutes they started rebounding the ball, started taking it right at us. We didn’t get to the foul line. With a team that plays as physical as they do and as tough as they do defensively, you shoot the ball six for 18, we had to get to the foul line and we didn’t do it. They got to the foul line more than we did.”

On closing the gap with South Carolina...

“You setting me up because then you have all those South Carolina people jumping on me. That was a good basketball game. There’s a lot of talent on both sides. A possession here, maybe we would have won it a possession there. Maybe we would have won it, but they made the plays to win it and it was just toughness

“We will get in the film room Saturday and get ready for Mississippi State. We will show some of the things. How did we lose the lead? Where did we not help each other on the defensive end? Was that mental fatigue? Was it not communicating? But it was on the far end because we’re on defense down there, so we couldn’t scream and holler at him. There were several possessions on the defensive end where we needed to make stops, and we just didn’t do it.”

On what LSU learned from this game...

“I’m not into moral victories. Never have been. We had opportunities to win this game and we didn’t. I’m extremely proud of LSU and the atmosphere and what we created here and what we have created here in three years now. It doesn’t get any better than what you experienced tonight. I’m sure I’ll toss and turn all night. Don’t know if I’ll sleep much, but that’s a personality deal. We’ll learn from it just like we did when we went to South Carolina last year.

On the growth from her program on Thursday...

“It’s just a tough pill to swallow. But there are more games to play. Are we a better team tonight and today than we were two weeks ago and three weeks ago? Sure we are. If you’re not getting better, then you’re not doing your job as coaches and as players. And we’re better. We’re better. I think we’re one of the top teams in the country losing to South Carolina the way we did. Send a message that we’re not going away.”

On LSU's in-game decision-making...

“Better but not polished. Not tough. I thought they really wanted it. I thought they really worked hard. But we just have to clean up some things and we will.

On Angel Reese's reaction to her foul trouble...

“I hadn’t really talked to Angel. I know that she was cramping up and asked me to call a timeout right there one time, but I’m not going to talk about fouls. If Angel could do it over again, she wouldn’t have been even near that fifth foul, but that’s. That’s how it goes sometimes.”

On the overwhelming support the program has received…

“It makes you proud. It reminds me of what I told Holly Rowe before the game. When I had my first press conference here, I said all I want to do is come back to this state and do something positive. Little did I know at that time we would do what we have done in such a short period of time. So now we have probably created a monster. And we have to keep feeding it. And that’s the challenging and hard part. You grind and you grind and you grind. And I’m no spring chicken. How much do you keep grinding or do you just do like Saban did and say, I’ve had enough? Because people forget how hard it is. Do y ‘all realize what we’ve done in three years is ridiculous? But that’s what we do as competitors as coaches type -a personalities. It’s hard and I’m forever grateful to the community at LSU. We will just keep doing what we do.”