Angel Reese Admits LSU Experience Had Her Rethinking Basketball Career

Mulkey talks to Reese mid-play during an LSU basketball game
Mulkey talks to Reese mid-play during an LSU basketball game / Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images
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Angel Reese ended her collegiate basketball career as one of the most accomplished LSU athletes in her two short years with the program after transferring from Maryland. While her limited time at the school made it difficult for her to climb counting stat leaderboards, she leads the school all time in key efficiency metrics like box plus/minus and player efficiency rating (PER).

Reese led the team in scoring and rebounds (12.3 points, 15.4 rebounds per game) in the 2022-23 season which culminated in the school's first women’s basketball national title.

She'll admit it wasn't easy, though. She took to X (formerly Twitter) on Friday with a fair warning for those considering playing basketball at LSU, admitting that she had to, "rethink this hoop life ... time after time." She made sure to be clear, though, saying it was all worth it in the end.

At one point with the Tigers, Reese took a leave of absence from the team for four games. It went unexplained at the time, but Reese recently revealed the burden of a long season and the pressures of the program forced her to take some time off for, "peace of mind."

Kim Mulkey, head coach of the women's basketball team at LSU (and before that, Baylor), has garnered a reputation for being a win-at-all-costs leader.


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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.