It's not lost on Kim Mulkey that her quest to build LSU back into a national contender is a but unique, considering she left one she'd already built to do it.
There are legendary coaches in the sport, but not many who have done it the way she has over the last two seasons.
"I’m probably the first ever in the history of men or women’s basketball in college to leave a dynasty and do what I did," she told Mike Detillier and Bobby Hebert this week on SportsTalk. "There is no blueprint. Nobody does that."
Listen to the full conversation with Kim Mulkey in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
It's a fair point. The legendary coaches of the sport, Pat Summitt with Tennessee, Geno Auriemma with UConn, Tara VanDerveer with Stanford. Those names are all synonymous with one school. It's an advantage in a lot of ways, and one she sacrificed in leaving Baylor, where she won 86% of her games and three NCAA Tournament crowns. The early returns at LSU, however, don't show many signs of that difficult road playing too much of a factor.
"I came home. I saw an opportunity to do something good for our flagship university, our state. I’m comfortable here. I didn’t have to re-introduce myself. People know me and it felt right," Mulkey said. "And I think because of that we were able to get a lot of transfers in that first recruiting class, and then we had the No. 1 recruiting class this year. You’ve got to keep putting things like that together, and yea, it’s been an interesting journey to watch coaches retire that have won championships."
But she can take the next step on creating that roadmap along with her Tigers this week as they face off with No. 13 seed Hawaii at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Mulkey has been consistent, even as her team rolled to a 28-2 season, that while the team is ahead of schedule, there's still a lot to prove. In a similar vein, she's keeping her goals modest -- at least by her standards -- as the NCAA Tournament approaches.
"We want to win one more game than we won in the playoffs last year. So if we can win two games, that puts you in the Sweet 16," Mulkey said. "You go to Greenville, and you have to win two more to get to a Final Four in Dallas. Who knows what could happen.”
━━
MORE FROM KIM MULKEY
Thoughts on landing a 2 seed after a 28-2 season
“I’m never pleased. I never understand what the committee does. I’ve won national championships being a 2 seed, being a 1 seed. They have criteria that they look at. I don’t take the time to figure it out. ... The places that I start questioning are, did you really hold our non-conference schedule against us so much that we weren’t worthy of a 2 seed? Or was that because we lost a 17-point lead to Tennessee? We weren’t even supposed to beat Tennessee when the season started. They were picked ahead of us. They were a top 5 team in the country.
"There’s so many things that you can question. The bottom line is, you want to host. And we got to host again. We’re going to play the first, second round games here in the PMAC. The top 16 seeds in the country get that advantage."
━━
Thoughts on Hawaii
“Hawaii finished third in their conference. They won their conference tournament, which gave them the automatic bid. They shoot a lot of threes. They’re not big. They do have post presence, though, in their league. But you’re going to see a team that will shoot a lot of threes, and we’ve got bigs that are going to go out there and guard the three ball.”
━━
Are things more difficult as a 3 seed?
“You can win a national championship and not be a 1 seed. What the 1 seed does is it protects you in the first couple of rounds. … You’ve got to play. That’s it in a nutshell. If you’re a team that gets on a roll, you stay away from injuries and you start playing really good, you can do it. Cinderellas are not as common on the women’s side as one the men’s side. But think about this, name me the last Cinderella that ever won a national championship on the men’s side. Does anybody come to mind? … They’ll make the Final Four, but how many of them ever truly win it? The Cinderellas, they really happen in conference tournaments.”
