Kim Mulkey sweats small details to keep LSU women on their toes

The last time the LSU women’s basketball team took the floor, it allowed Northwestern State to score a seemingly innocuous layup — a bucket that only turned the Tigers’ 61-point victory into a win 59 point win on his final possession.

The last-second layup had no effect on the outcome of the match.

But it was still a problem for the coach Kim Mulkeyenough for her to mention it on her postgame radio show, discuss it in the film room immediately after the game, and bring it up within a minute at a press conference to answer a question about the LSU defense.

“When you’re in timeouts in games with such a big lead,” Mulkey said, “I always challenge them to try something. Can we keep this team at this number of points for the rest of the match? I never talk about how many points we can score. I just always want to say, ‘Can you keep them with this?’ ”

Mulkey recalled that Northwestern State scored 36 points last season when it visited the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, so she decided to challenge her No. 7 LSU team (2-0) to allow fewer points in this game year with the Demons.

Late in the fourth quarter, LSU came close to achieving that goal.

But the buzzer-beating layup it allowed on the game’s final possession pushed Northwestern State’s total from 34 to 36. It was only the 11th field goal the Demons converted of the game, a night in which they made just 19% of shooting the floor, committed 28 turnovers and scored just 22 points in the final three quarters of action.

LSU’s next three opponents — including the Charleston Southern team it will host at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the program’s annual field trip game — will likely finish with similar offensive numbers. But that fact doesn’t stop Mulkey from looking for opportunities to find an edge and looking for opportunities to correct any mistakes she sees.

“I think we are preparing for later in the season,” Mikaylah Williams said. “Yes, these games are important, but we’re preparing for the South Carolinas and the SEC conference (games) and things like that.”

LSU won its first two games by an average of 55 points. The two opponents – Eastern Kentucky and Northwestern State – combined to shoot just 23% from the field and committed 49 turnovers. The Tigers also defeated the two teams by 18 and 15 boards respectively.

Starting Tuesday, LSU will have four more chances to find its footing before facing its first power conference opponent in a Nov. 25 matchup with Washington in the Bahamas. A win over the Huskies would likely set up a matchup two days later with No. 13 NC State, which fell 71-57 to No. 1 South Carolina on Sunday.

On Dec. 5, LSU will host No. 23 Stanford in the SEC/ACC Challenge.

Until then, Mulkey will continue to challenge the Tigers to play tough defense – from the first possession to the last.

“I said, ‘Can you give me 36 or less this year?’ Mulkey said. “A new team? Let’s see what we can do.’

“If we hadn’t given up that last bucket, you would have kept them below last year’s level.”