Kim Mulkey Fights Back Tears While Looking Back On Rocky, Controversial Season At LSU

BATON ROUGE - Unapologetic and pointing fingers to the end, LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey gave an emotional and at times angry speech at her team's postseason banquet Thursday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

"Look around this building," Mulkey said. "Wow! That's all I can tell you. This is why I came home. I came home to do good here. Not bad."

LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey's team fell to Iowa, 94-87, on April 1 in the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight in Albany, New York. (Getty Images)

Mulkey promised a national championship when she took the stage in the same Assembly Center on April 26, 2021, at her introductory press conference after leaving Baylor, where she won three national championships.

RELATED: Kim Mulkey Delivers Title In Just 2nd Year

And the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee in 2020 won it all in just her second season at LSU a year ago. It was LSU's first national championship in basketball - men or women.

"The distractions that came from winning that national championship, I don't think I've ever seen in my entire life," Mulkey, 61, said. "The things that have been printed, the lies that have been told - for what reason?"

RELATED: L.A. Times Retracts, Revises Column On LSU

Mulkey did not get specific on who lied, though she did get a retraction and a revised version of a Los Angeles Times column written about her team late last month.

She pointed fingers at a Washington Post profile on her on March 24, but, strangely, before the story by major award-winning writer and author Kent Babb even came out. She threatened a lawsuit if the story was inaccurate. And she was the one who was inaccurate in her assessment of a previous story by Babb about LSU coach Brian Kelly. She said that story was part of the reason she chose not to speak to Babb for his feature on her.

Already being double and triple checked for accuracy before Mulkey's rant, Babb's impressive and balanced feature on Mulkey published on March 30, and there have been no reports of any inaccuracies or unfairness. Even some of LSU's frequent apologetic media members said there were no issues with the story. Yet, Mulkey called it "trash," without reading it, of course, or at least that's what she said. 

LSU's Post National Title Season Started Off Bad

Mulkey's rocky season started with a season opening loss as the No. 1 team in the nation to No. 20 Colorado.

Star forward Angel Reese led LSU to the 2023 national title before being suspended for four games early this season. (Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

Shortly after that, she suspended star player Angel Reese for four games after some lackadaisical play and other issues. Several local reporters criticized her for not shedding any light on why and refusing to call it anything other than an absence.

OPINION: Local Media Tries To Explain To Kim Mulkey How Media Works

LSU still finished within one win from returning to the Final Four despite all the distractions, although most of that came from Mulkey and Reese to begin with.

OPINION: How Kim Mulkey Got Outcoached In Iowa Loss

"The focus this team had to have to get to an Elite Eight and lose by seven to an outstanding Iowa team is pretty remarkable," Mulkey continued.

Following LSU's season-ending loss to Iowa in the Elite Eight, OutKick.com's Dan Zaksheske did a story on why LSU was not out for the national anthem before the game when Iowa was. LSU's women's team, like many college teams in all sports, is in the locker room during national anthems out of routine and habit - not because of any protest.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry did not like that LSU was not out for the national anthem before an Elite Eight women's game when Iowa was. (Getty Images)

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, though, drew national headlines after watching his state's flagship university's team skip the anthem, then suggested all college teams in his state be present and accounted for during pre-game national anthems - or their scholarships should be taken away.

This particularly upset Mulkey, sources say, because she felt targeted by Landry. And Mulkey has always been very patriotic. But Landry repeatedly said he was not targeting Mulkey. And he wasn't. Her team was only involved in the original stories about Landry and the national anthem.

OPINION: Jeff Landry Is Correct

Mulkey did not mention Landry by name in her speech Thursday, but sources say the Landry statements about the anthem are what put her over the edge.

"I'm emotional for a lot of reasons," she said as her voice cracked. "So you bear with me. Most of you know who I am. Most of you feel me right now. Most of you are standing here going, ‘My God, she’s been attacked. She comes home, she gets attacked. What is she going to say?'"

Mulkey, in truth, has not been attacked. She has been harshly criticized at times after things she did and said. And Kim Mulkey at times harshly criticizes and attacks others, particularly the media.

"I'm going to say I came back to this state to make a difference, and I promise you I will," she said.

What Kim Mulkey needs to do is realize that she needs to behave differently with more media relations sense. She needs to realize that the media is not here to serve her, which she may have grown accustomed to while at Louisiana Tech as a player and assistant coach and at Baylor. Her mentor at Lousiana Tech was coach Leon Barmore, who consistently spoke down to reporters and basically told them what to write.

"Just write what I tell you," Mulkey told reporters at a press conference during Reese's suspension last November.

OPINION: Women's Game Is Huge Now, So Toss The Kid Gloves

She is not alone in that attitude, though. Many women's basketball coaches - male and female - have grown accustomed to being treated with too much reverence and with kid gloves too often from the days when their sport was truly a minor one with more than a few overly positive reporters trying to help the movement upward.

It's a major sport now. And women's basketball coaches need to get with it and have thicker skins - like football coaches.

Maybe Mulkey will realize that most of the things she struggled with this season were mostly of her doing.

(Agree? Disagree? Send your comments to me at glenn.guilbeau@outkick.com or via X @SportBeatTweet.)