NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL 2 SEMIFINAL - LSU VS UTAH

March 23, 2023

Kim Mulkey

Alexis Morris

Angel Reese

Flau'jae Johnson

Bon Secours Wellness Arena

LSU Tigers

Sweet 16 Pregame Media Conference

Q. What makes Utah and Alissa Pili so hard to stop?

KIM MULKEY: Well, obviously they spread the floor. The three ball makes her really good. She's a threat in there because you have to guard everybody else. She has great footwork. She's not what I would call a big tall post player. She just has unbelievable knowledge when she gets the ball down there.

Obviously she can hit the three, as well. Good size, strong, but it's because of everybody else around her.

Q. Obviously being in the Sweet 16 is old hat for you personally, but I'm wondering if you felt when you got to LSU that you'd be able to get this program to this point as quickly as you have?

KIM MULKEY: It never gets old for me personally. If it does, I need to retire.

There's no way anybody with knowledge of sports would ever tell you that to do it in two years is something doable. You just roll up your sleeves, and you go to work. The transfer portal has made things kind of happen quicker, but the transfer portal also hurts teams.

We were able to get a lot of new pieces quickly. The hard part when you get those new pieces is they all come from different programs, and you have to change a mindset, and that takes time, as well.

Alexis Morris was the only returning player from last year's team that had significant minutes, so you knew what you were getting with her. You knew freshmen were going to be able to play at an early stage of their career, but that's a lot of pieces to put together.

LSU has been to Sweet 16s before. The LSU folks love winners. But I don't think anybody could be fair and say that we were going to do this in two years or even do what we did last year in the first year. That team had only won nine games the previous year, and you finish second behind the national champions and you went -- I think 26-6 was our record last year? We're doing things at a very fast pace. Might be feeding that monster too quickly, but it sure beats the heck out of losing.

Q. I wanted to ask about Angel. She had already established herself, but this year she's kind of kicked it up even another notch with just kind of ridiculous numbers. Are you even surprised sometimes, and what stands out the most to you about what she's been able to do this year?

KIM MULKEY: Well, we all knew of Angel Reese coming out of high school. She was the second ranked player in her class, and I knew very quickly after one call when I was at Baylor, she was staying home, so I didn't waste much time on her.

She stayed hurt a little bit at Maryland. She was like a lot of players, your freshman year is your most difficult, so she lived through that freshman year and had her ups and downs.

To say I expected this or that from Angel when we got her out of the portal, I don't think I was knowledgeable enough to know what I expected out of Angel Reese. I knew the talent was there from high school and from the few games I watched her when she was playing at Maryland. But to think that she scored -- has been a double-double 30 of our 32 games, absolutely not.

But we need her to be. But we've also had great games where she might have that double-double, but we've got three or four other people scoring the basketball.

We're not just an Angel Reese one-man show. If you watch us play, everybody has a role to play. We're a mixture of transfers, one returning starter, freshmen, go eight deep, and everybody just does what they do.

We can shoot the three ball. Leave us open; we'll shoot it. We're not afraid to shoot it and miss it. We'll shoot it again.

I don't know if I really knew what kind of expectation to put on her, but she's had a tremendous year.

Q. Coach, I know this program hasn't been to the Sweet 16 since 2014, but you've got several starters who have transferred in and been in these moments. How much do you rely on their experience in these moments?

KIM MULKEY: I think Angel Reese said it best; she's been to two already. She wants to get past that, and you love that. You love that.

We're excited. I think all teams that are here are excited. It's playoff time, and you're seeing a lot of upsets in the women's game like never before. We feel like if we play and play hard and play defense and rebound and we win, we move on. If we get beat, we're going to hope that whoever beats us, you can just say, hey, we couldn't have done any more than we did. They were just that good today.

Q. What was your pitch to Angel to get her to come to LSU, and why do you think she's been able to fit in so seamlessly and help take this program to the next level under you?

KIM MULKEY: You're a Baltimore Orioles fan, huh? Tell them to come get my son from the Cardinals. He's a free agent at the end of the year, and they need a middle infielder. Okay? Pass it along. Cal Ripken came to our game this year. I don't know if you know that. Big fan of baseball, obviously.

What was your question about Angel? I'm trying to get my son on that major league field. He moved up with the Mets, he moved up with the Cardinals, but he needs to go somewhere where they give him a legit shot to stay. He's ready. So what was your question?

Kateri Poole was on Ohio State's team last year. They came to the PMAC and played us in the playoffs, beat us, and she went into the transfer portal. And I thought there were things about Kateri's game that I liked in helping us continue to build our program. And in the process of talking to her, one of my assistant coaches asked, would you be interested in Angel Reese? And she said, what?

She said, Angel Reese is getting into the transfer portal, like either that day or the next day, and she said, yes, we would love to talk to Angel Reese.

So I think the connection with Kateri Poole, they go way back in their younger days of playing together or against each other and were friends. And they came on a visit together with their families, and I think that the seafood -- y'all have good seafood, right? And we didn't sell her on crawfish, we sold her on those crabs. Y'all think you have good crabs, but we've got better crabs.

Q. Earlier in the week I asked you about Angel Reese, and you said she was just on another level. She was locked in. As you guys get ready for Utah with another big on big, big-time showdown, what have you seen from her?

KIM MULKEY: I think the Tennessee loss here -- actually in the SEC tournament -- she left there realizing that she could have done before. Maybe not scoring, maybe not rebounding, set a pick when a play is called, do your job.

I think it's kind of what a lot of older players that are competitors do. It eats on you. I think Angel has the mindset, I've been in college now three years. I've been to two Sweet 16s. We lost that 17-point lead in the SEC tournament. We'd already played Tennessee earlier in the year. I've got to do better.

I think from that moment on, I think she realizes that it's now playoff time, and I think she is really, really focused.

Q. Back on February 12th in Columbia when you played South Carolina, you said it's basically South Carolina and everybody else. Do you feel like that's still the case? The second part of the question, in 2012 you led a team that was 40-0. How hard is it night in and night out to step up with those expectations and try to go undefeated?

KIM MULKEY: The first part of your question, it's South Carolina and everybody else. They're that good. They have that much depth. They have that much size. Yeah, they had, what, one close game this year? Ole Miss? I mean, Ole Miss had a chance to win it at the end.

I haven't changed my feeling on that. Now, I wasn't talking about them maybe getting beat or whatever. I'm just talking about winning the National Championship. They have everything they need: Great coaching staff, experience, size.

How hard is it to go undefeated? Do you know how hard it is to win a championship? I don't think any coach or any player sits down and thinks, we need to write down going undefeated as our goal. You don't think like that as a coach and as a competitor. You just want to hold up that trophy. You want to be the last team standing.

To do it one time in a career is so hard. I could name you a handful, maybe two handfuls of coaches that are considered some of the greatest coaches in men's and women's basketball that coached 30, 40 years and never won a championship. It's that hard. To do it multiple times, you have to turn and say it's because of players. Players wanting to play in programs that know what it's like and what it takes to win championships.

Yeah, they're that good.

Q. Maddy Siegrist is a first-team all American, Angel is a first-team all American. There's a lot of talent in this bracket in particular. I'm curious at a time when women's basketball has a bit of a spotlight with the Sweet 16 and March Madness, how valuable is it to the sport when people are watching, having eyeballs on the game, that you have the best players, that level of talent to kind of sell the sport at its highest level?

KIM MULKEY: Well, I think what All-American team you're talking about, okay. I really tried to not look at many of those, because Angel is not even a finalist for two of them that she's a finalist for, which was a shock to me. That Angel Reese is not one of the four best players in the country.

Now, I know Wooden has their criteria, but didn't two more come out this week? Help me here, guys. Naismith, Angel wasn't listed as one of the four best players, and the Wade trophy she wasn't listed. So I appreciate that you acknowledge that she is one of the best players in the country because she is. And it's not your opinion or my opinion that matters; it's what she does on the floor.

I don't know the last time I've seen a kid have 30 of 32 double-doubles and be on a team that has talent. You'll see that a lot on teams that are in the middle of the pack and they rely on her for every shot and stuff like that.

So to have those types of players draw attention to the sport is awesome.

50 points in a game, not many do that. The young lady at Villanova, Siegrist, she's done that. To win National Championships like South Carolina, not many have done that. Boston can leave here and say she's done that. Angel Reese would like to do what Boston has done for South Carolina.

Angel Reese, being an All-American is a pat on the back, but which do you want? Do you want to be an All-American or do you want a National Championship, conference championship rings? I think all competitors would tell you we'll trade all those individual honors for something that the team can keep forever and ever.

Q. I wanted to ask you about something you said earlier. You said we might be feeding the monster too quickly. What did you mean by that?

KIM MULKEY: People start expecting things. So we won one game last year. We have exceeded last year's. What are they going to expect next year? How are they going to feel if we don't beat Utah? Come on now, keep perspective.

So basically you're trying to tamper down expectations that may not be fair or real until you really, really have that kind of team that can talk about Final Fours and talk about longevity every year.

What we have done in two years, where is the playbook for me to follow? I don't have one. I can think about my years at Baylor where we won the National Championship in five years. To me that was unheard of.

All you do is work. You just work. Whatever happens, you deal with it. You get excited about it. But you keep perspective.

I wanted this year for our team to show progress, and we have. We've shown progress. I don't think there's any area that we went backwards. That's what you want to keep doing.

If along the way of showing that progress, you do something unexpected, it's fun. It's fun.

Q. You've coached and recruited at an elite level in this sport more than two decades. Is there anything in the game that has changed the way you do your job more than the transfer portal did in the last two years?

KIM MULKEY: There's many things throughout my career that have -- that's changed women's basketball. Let's go back to the smaller ball. Let's go back to the three-point line. Let's go back now to the portal. Let's go back now to the NIL world. Everything changes. Nothing ever stays the same except for discipline. You can always be a disciplined coach, and you can always teach defense. Those things will never change. It's just who you are as a coach.

What you have to do if you're going to stay in the game as long as I have is surround yourself with a staff that keeps you young and abreast of how to handle those areas that you really don't want to learn a lot about but you know you've got to embrace them.

I don't want to learn about NIL, so I have someone -- we were one of the first programs to assign an assistant coach the title that she was going to work with LSU's department in the NIL. Can you imagine me sitting down -- I had no idea the NIL deals that my players had until somebody showed me an article. And I went, don't want to know that stuff. That's not locker room stuff I care to talk about.

Happy for them, knock your socks off, it's here to stay. All I want to do is coach basketball. Really, in my career, all I've ever wanted was for my players and our fans is to experience the high you get from cutting down a net. The greatest joy I have now in my career is sitting back and watching young people with these tears in their eyes of joy, watching people in the stands just -- that's why I do it now. For them. And there's no greater feeling.

When your career is over and you can't put that uniform on ever again, it's the worst feeling in the world. That's why I embrace the young lady, the kid at Michigan. I know the feeling in her heart. Been there. Sabrina Ionescu, did the same thing with her. There is no more awful feeling than when you know when you walk in that locker room and you'll never put on another college uniform.

If we had lost that game, I would have done the same thing to my seniors when they take it off for the last time. Unless you have done that, you don't know the gut-wrenching sleepless nights that you will have -- time will help them, but it's terrible.

Yes, some of them will go on and play pro ball, but I'm talking about college. College years are the absolute most enjoyable years of your life.

Q. You mentioned defense a moment ago. Clearly that was important against Michigan. Similar situation with varied scoring on this Utah team. How do you match up with them?

KIM MULKEY: Well, they're big on the perimeter. Michigan was big on the perimeter. We understand that they're going to be big. We understand they're going to spread the floor possibly a little bit more than Michigan.

We respect their threes. Look, you shoot as many threes as they shoot, they're going to make threes, so we're not going to pitch a shutout here, going back to my baseball stuff.

But that's not all they do. They have a big-time post player. They get to the foul line. They get to the lane. So you've got to pick your poison with them and go, okay, which one can we truly try to -- not eliminate but try to contain a little bit.

But I think everybody that's played them has tried to do that. And I do believe this, that you're going to have to play defense at this level to continue on. No matter how good you are offensively, I always believe your better defensive teams prevail.

Q. Angel, apparently you're not one of the finalists for the Naismith or the Wade trophies. Does that motivate you? What is your feeling about that?

ANGEL REESE: We're just happy to be here. I'm in the Sweet 16 with my teammates. I'm with amazing coaches. I'm just happy to be back here. It's bigger than me. I just want to be with my teammates and to get to the Final Four. That's the finalist I want to be.

Q. Talk about visibility of a basketball program; Angel, I saw a video of you, looked like on Instagram live. In terms of helping a program build maybe a little bit quicker as Kim has talked about than maybe normally, how much does visibility come into account?

ANGEL REESE: Yeah, we're just more than an athlete. I was just talking to Carolyn Peck about just being a Black woman and being able to have an impact on all communities, white, Black, Mexican. Like it doesn't matter who, old, young, I've made an impact, and we've all made an impact on different kinds of people.

Just being that and embracing that and just such in a positive way, I feel like I've grown women's basketball within the last six months, and being able to do that, and I've grown my platform on and off the court. I'm more than an athlete, and just being able to embrace that and having people respect women's basketball, I love it. That's where I am with that.

ALEXIS MORRIS: We lit.

Q. Angel, I'm curious, you obviously had a lot of success before you got down here and just really kicked it up another notch this season. What was the off-season like for you as far as working to get better and taking your game to another level? I'm curious what you focused on.

ANGEL REESE: Yeah, as soon as I got to LSU, they had a plan for me. As soon as I got here, being in shape was one of the most important things. I think last year I was playing 20 to 25 minutes a game. And then being able to up that to what, 31 or 35 minutes a game, being able to play that was one thing. And then being able to play under a system where I'm really confident. I'm super confident.

I've been able to do these things that I'm doing right now before, but just within a program that really loves me, embraces me, puts a lot of confidence in me -- I have really confident teammates, really competitive teammates that push me every day to be better. So just being in a program where I can just be myself and be who I am and embrace that.

Q. Alexis, you've played a lot of talented post people all this year. What's it going to be like going up against Alissa Pili? And, Flau'jae, you've got a very prominent brand away from the court, as well. How do you handle that, and do you ever worry about maybe some of your followers getting a little sideways, taking it too far? Like maybe the way they reacted with Olivia on campus and in the stands at times?

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: I think -- I've been in the spotlight for a little while, I'm not going to lie. I was on TV since I was like 12 year old on The Rap Game and America's got talent, so really I just learned how to handle it. My mama, the mama bear she don't let nobody get too close, so I don't be too worried about that. I know how to keep things separate.

Like, during the season it's focus strictly on basketball, but this summer I'm outside.

ALEXIS MORRIS: I respect Pili's game. She's a versatile post player, but I feel like I've got the best post players in the country. I'm sitting right next to her, and one is in the locker room. Hey, it's going to be a competitive game, and we respect Utah and what they bring to the court. Hats off. 5:00 p.m.

Q. For Lex and Flau'jae specifically, Kim was talking about how she's had to adapt throughout the years to different things, but one thing she doesn't change is defense and discipline. I'm assuming she's not real big in The Rap Game, so how has she been able to be flexible with you as a young player and be relatable to you? And, Lex, you've seen her change throughout the years.

ALEXIS MORRIS: You basically answered it yourself, her defense hasn't changed. She has the exact same defensive principles since my freshman year at Baylor, which is to dominate your opponents and dictate the game. Because she know that you can't -- sometimes you're going to have off nights, but one thing we can always control is our defense. Because it doesn't take talent or skill, it's just simply based off of effort.

Yeah, we're definitely a more defensive-minded team right now.

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: You mean like musically?

Q. (No microphone).

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: Coach Mulkey, man, she's so funny. She tries to keep up with the times, but we teach her. We've got to teach her and keep her on point. She really embraces me with me being a rapper. A lot of coaches didn't want to even recruit me because of it. She not only recruited me and got me here, but she even embraced and she even makes me rap a lot, like, when we have lunches and stuff like that. So she really supports everything I'm doing. She loves it.

Q. Angel, going against another big-time big in the postseason, it seems like you're playing at a next level in the Playoffs. Where is that coming from? Obviously it's the Playoffs.

ANGEL REESE: It sparked from the Tennessee game. I don't think I found my -- that wasn't my best defensive game and I felt like I let my teammates down. Since then I've just been in another mode where I'm not going to let somebody dominate me like that again.

So just being able to come back within the team, get back to the weight room, getting stronger, getting in better shape, and just being ready for postseason, which is something that was really important to me. Because I want to go out with my seniors in the right way, and I want to leave Alexis back to Dallas and just being able to embrace that. I don't want to be the reason that we lose another game.

Q. Angel, I was just going to ask you, I've seen you tweet a couple times, I'm from Baltimore, you seem to have a lot of pride in where you're from. I'm wondering what it means to you to be from there and kind of how your roots from Baltimore show up on the court?

ANGEL REESE: Yeah, just growing up around the area and playing ball there, it's just something that has always molded me into who I am, playing outside and just being able to be super competitive. I used to play with boys, I have a brother. So just being able to know that a lot of people in Baltimore don't make it out and just being able to have this platform I have right now and being able to put on for them and be an example for them, it's just something that's been really important to me.

So for the little girls that are looking up to me, just for having them the inspiration to know they can do this, as well.

Q. For all the players, you guys were here just three weeks ago for the SEC tournament. How much of a benefit is it to have played on this court before, walked through these halls? How much do you think that will be a benefit tomorrow?

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: For me, it makes me a little more comfortable because I'm not as nervous. We're in the same arena. It's time to get back to business, really come back with a vengeance, because last time we played here we lost. Come back and we're just going to fuel it from the last game.

ALEXIS MORRIS: For me, I'm big on rims, so I'm going to piggy-back off of what Flau'jae said. Just being comfortable in arena and the atmosphere here, and I feel like this is kind of our second home. Like we're familiar.

ANGEL REESE: I just feel like you don't get these chances twice. Being able to come back here within the last three weeks, that's God's plan right here, and I believe in that a lot. And I feel like we ain't going to walk out of here with that same feeling that we felt last time, and that's just my mindset right now.

Q. Alexis, what kind of energy -- besides the skill Angel brings on the court, what kind of energy and juice does she bring to the floor for y'all?

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: Man, just great energy. Great energy, man. Just a real leader on the court, really vocal. She'll tell you, Flau, that's a bad shot. And then the next one she'll tell you, you're going crazy, keep doing it, stay confident. She'll just tell you what you need to hear, things that's going to help you grow as a player. Just a really great leader.

ALEXIS MORRIS: Great, great, great leader on both ends of the floor. Angel is brutally honest. She's always going to let you know what it is and what it ain't, period.

I think you have to respect that about an individual like Angel because a lot of people can't really accept the truth. And Angel can take it, too. I think that's what makes her who she is, because she can take and dish it. That's really beautiful in the art of basketball, because a lot of people can't take constructive criticism, and she can, and that's why I'm respecting when she tells us what it is, period.

Q. For the three of you, Coach Mulkey just said she didn't really have a playbook for getting to this point after only two years in a program, and this is a new team compared to the one she had last year. I'm wondering what is it about this group of ladies that you have together that has allowed you to get to this point now where you're in the Sweet 16.

ANGEL REESE: I think we're just really confident. I don't think we're scared of anything. Nothing has scared us. We've been hit for sure with two losses for sure, but nothing has put us down. I don't know if you saw the picture from the last game before this game, in the locker room when I grabbed Coach Mulkey's face this time and just telling her, I got you. I got you.

Just telling her, we're going to get out of Baton Rouge. I told her before that game, we're going to get out of Baton Rouge. I think she has a lot of confidence within our team. Even though we are young and have nine new pieces, she doesn't really have expectations for us. But when she has confident people on her team, I think it kind of lifts up a lot of weight on her shoulders. She's confident in us, and I'm really confident in all the coaches.

ALEXIS MORRIS: It's the postseason, so if Coach Mulkey has to coach us through every play, then we shouldn't be here anyway. This is what we practice for. This is what we focus on.

When we lost to Tennessee, we especially started to focus on execution and knowing what we need to do. Like I said, Coach Mulkey can't coach us every possession during the course of a game. We're out there actually playing the game. We have to have a feel for each other in the game.

And I'm laughing on the inside because you said she doesn't have plays, but she has had the same plays since my freshman year, so it's like...

Q. (No microphone).

ALEXIS MORRIS: She is the plan. Coach Mulkey is the GOAT. All LSU needed was Coach Mulkey.

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: She brought us here. That's why she doesn't give herself enough credit. She brought these pieces to Baton Rouge. She probably didn't know how it was going to fit, but she knew that she had something. You feel me? We're building a culture, so everything we're doing right now is building a culture for next year and next year.

Hopefully it will be a Final Four team every year. That's what we're trying to build. But Coach Mulkey she put the pieces together. She's been doing this a long time. All we've got to do is play our part, and she's going to lead us there.

Q. Flau'jae, the confidence that you got from that last game, that was definitely the best game I've seen you play as a team. I asked Kim after the game if y'all grew up. It really felt like you did. Did it feel like that as a player? Did you grow up?

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON: Man, it felt like -- it was a crazy feeling actually. Like we was playing defense, it felt like we was on a string, like everybody was moving on one accord. I keep telling people that. It's just a different energy. Everybody is on the same page. I had a sort of feeling that I ain't felt since the beginning of the season, even though our non-conference was weak or whatever.

But I felt that feeling that I felt like we was playing together, and I was like, we're destined for greatness. We're one accord. It's a beautiful thing to see. I think we played our best defense for the whole season, and we've just got to carry that on into this game.

ALEXIS MORRIS: She pretty much answered it. We're all focused. We know what we need to do, and we're all clicking right now, and I think this is the perfect time of the season to be on the same page.