Five questions facing LSU women ahead of Kim Mulkey’s Year 6 | LSU

Last season ended in heartbreak for the LSU women’s basketball team.

Coach Kim Mulkey’s Tigers had reached at least the Elite Eight in three consecutive seasons before Duke hit that buzzer-beating 3 in the Sweet 16, swiping another shot at the Final Four away from LSU.

Now it’s time to start over.

In the offseason, the Tigers lost Flau’jae Johnson to the WNBA and a few key contributors to the transfer portal. But those departures didn’t stop Mulkey and her staff from assembling what most consider to be one of the most talented rosters in the country. Again.

Mikaylah Williams is back. So, too, are MiLaysia Fulwiley, ZaKiyah Johnson and Grace Knox.

Former Iowa State point guard Jada Williams and ex-Florida guard Laila Reynolds are newcomers, along with one McDonald’s All-American forward (Lola Lampley) and two international post players: Noa Morro (Spain) and Anna Minaeva (Russia).

Is this the year LSU returns to the Final Four for the first time since it won the 2023 national championship?

Here are five questions that Mulkey’s new-look bunch will have to answer this season before it takes another shot at a title.

How well will LSU rebound?

LSU has been one of the nation’s five best rebounding teams in each of the last four seasons.

Last year was the first the Tigers have played since 2021-22 without either Angel Reese or Aneesah Morrow – two of the best glass-cleaners in college basketball history – and they still grabbed more boards per game than all but two Division I teams.

Rebounding is one of Mulkey’s top priorities. Her teams won’t score lots of points in transition unless they grab lots of defensive boards, and they won’t score lots of points in the paint unless they can grab lots of offensive boards.

So, how well will LSU fare on the glass this year?

The answer likely hinges on how quickly three of its top four projected post players can acclimate to the Southeastern Conference’s speed and physicality.

Morro is a 6-foot-3 forward who’s played professionally in Spain, but she’s recovering from surgery to address a stress fracture in her shin, so she won’t make her LSU debut until at least late November.

Lampley is a 6-2 freshman who’s beginning her career in the post even though she was recruited as a perimeter player.

And Minaeva is a skilled 6-5 center from Russia who can pass and shoot, but she’s still only 17 years old.

“They’re gonna be thrown to the wolves,” Mulkey said. “They’re gonna be out there, and they’re gonna have great moments and they’re gonna have not-so-great moments.”

The good news for LSU is that Mulkey thinks the uber-athletic sophomore Grace Knox has been “playing unbelievable” in preseason practices. She has all the tools she needs to be an elite rebounder, and LSU still has Mikaylah Williams and ZaKiyah Johnson – two players who grabbed more than five rebounds per game last season.

Does Fulwiley start?

Fulwiley is a two-time SEC sixth woman of the year. She’s come off the bench in 108 of the 112 games she’s played in her career.

But this season might finally be the one in which the former South Carolina transfer slides into the starting lineup. Because LSU lost Flau’jae Johnson to the WNBA, it now has a starting spot open in the backcourt next to Mikaylah Williams and Jada Williams.

It’s important to point out, though, that Fulwiley will play a significant role this season whether she starts or not. Last year, she logged 25 minutes per game in SEC play – the fourth-most on the team.

Mulkey made sure to point out on Sept. 21 that Fulwiley is more comfortable in her system now. The dynamic senior guard didn’t miss a single summer workout either, which gives the LSU coaches more confidence that she can “give us more.”

“She wants to take some things that she didn’t do last year to the next level,” Mulkey said, “and it starts with her defense. It starts with her conditioning.”

Where does Morro fit in?

LSU needs someone to step into the role that Ukrainian center Kate Koval would’ve played had she decided to stick with the Tigers for her junior season.

Morro seems like the most likely candidate. She’s a tall, long senior who’s played four years of professional basketball overseas.

The problem, though, is that she’s not a prototypical LSU center. Morro likes to shoot 3-pointers.

She took three long-range shots per game last season for the Spanish club Kutxabank Araski and converted an efficient 38% of them. The Tigers can sprinkle in some 3s for Morro once she’s healthy this year, but they’ll need her primarily to rebound, protect the rim and score in the paint.

So, Morro’s production at LSU would ideally look similar to the numbers she posted in Spain last season: 8.2 points and 7.5 rebounds in 25 minutes of action per game.

Koval averaged 5.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per contest in SEC play last year while shooting 51% from the field.

How much will Minaeva play?

Mulkey thinks Minaeva will be a “special” player.

It just may take longer than one season for her to realize that potential. The Russian center is tall, strong and fundamentally sound, but she’s only about the same age as a typical high school senior. She won’t turn 18 until January.

“Let’s be real,” Mulkey said. “She’s 17 years old, and she’s gonna have to play against older players. She’s gonna get her lunch handed to her, and the physicality…I don’t even know if she had ever lifted a weight until she got over here.”

Which will make it tough for Minaeva to carve out a role for a team with national title aspirations as a freshman.

But there’s still a chance she develops more quickly than Mulkey and her staff expect her to, which would make the Tigers considerably deeper in the frontcourt.

How will LSU fare in the nonconference?

Get ready for LSU to play a more compelling nonconference slate this season. It’s set to face UConn, North Carolina, Villanova, North Carolina State and Houston before SEC play tips off in January.

It’s a trickier slate than the ones Mulkey has scheduled in the past. Will it help the Tigers or hurt them? Tough nonconference matchups are double-edged swords: they can certainly strengthen your NCAA Tournament resume, but they can also diminish it.

Either way, Mulkey and her staff should learn more about their new-look group in November and December than they have in previous years, which can help them avoid the slow start to conference play that LSU had to work through last season.