{"id":251080,"date":"2025-09-24T12:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T12:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/251080\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T12:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T12:30:13","slug":"kim-mulkeys-2025-26-womens-basketball-team-is-a-new-outfit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/251080\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Mulkey\u2019s 2025-26 Women\u2019s Basketball Team Is A New Outfit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kim
\nLSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey has failed to reach the Final Four in back-to-back seasons after winning the national championship in 2023. (File photo).<\/p>\n

By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter<\/p>\n

Coach Kim Mulkey\u2019s 2025-26 LSU women\u2019s basketball team has undergone a major wardrobe change.<\/p>\n

Out of the 13 on the roster, eight are new with five freshmen and three transfers. The only returning starters are All-Southeastern Conference first team senior guard Flau\u2019Jae Johnson and All-SEC first team junior guard Mikaylah Williams.<\/p>\n

Gone is All-American forward Aneesah Morrow, who was the seventh pick of the WNBA first round last spring by Connecticut, as well as other post players in Jersey Wolfenbarger, Sa\u2019Myah Smith and Aalyah Del Rosario, who all transferred and left Mulkey with no inside size.<\/p>\n

But she is embracing the challenge of dressing a new team.<\/p>\n

LSU ELIMINATED IN ELITE EIGHT FOR SECOND STRAIGHT YEAR<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t view that any other way than go to work,\u201d Mulkey said at a press conference Tuesday as practice opened. \u201cLet\u2019s go to work. This is what you get paid to do, and let\u2019s see how good we can become.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulkey is the second-highest paid women\u2019s college basketball coach in the country at $3.35 million this season, following South Carolina\u2019s Dawn Staley at $4 million a year.<\/p>\n

She has added five freshmen, including a quartet of four-star prospects in 6-foot-2 forward Grace Knox and guards Divine Bourrage, Bella Hines and Zakiyah Johnson. The fifth freshman is 6-0 forward Meghan Yarnevich.<\/p>\n

The portal additions are blockbuster transfer SEC Sixth Woman of the Year MiLaysia Fulwiley, a 5-10 guard from national runner-up South Carolina, 6-5 forward Kate Koval of Notre Dame and 6-2 forward Amiya Joyner of East Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the talent is there,\u201d Mulkey said. \u201cThose kids came in here with quite a reputation, but this is a different level. And let\u2019s see how good we can become.\u201d<\/p>\n

KIM MULKEY DELIVERS LSU ITS FIRST BASKETBALL NATIONAL TITLE<\/a><\/p>\n

She likes the attitudes of the newcomers, which includes less drama and more basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing I can tell you is I like their disposition,\u201d Mulkey said. \u201cThey\u2019re here to play basketball and to get an education. And I like the way that they just almost all have like a Flau\u2019Jae joy about them. They\u2019re all excited. They\u2019re all happy. They\u2019re all just really focused on basketball, and I enjoy that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tigers added the No.1 transfer in the nation in Fulwiley, who shocked the college basketball world when she left South Carolina after two seasons in which she averaged 11.7 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.6 steals a game.<\/p>\n

WHY MILAYSIA FULWILEY LEFT SOUTH CAROLINA FOR LSU<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s beaten me too many times for me not to have taken her into this program,\u201d Mulkey said. \u201cI mean she\u2019s just a big-shot, big-steal, spectacular-moves player. I\u2019m going to challenge her to learn the point guard position, but I\u2019m not going to take away her ability to play the off guard either. I mean ballers want to play with ballers, and she\u2019s going to be fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulkey likes her inside players as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pretty big. If you look at Kate (Koval) and you look at Amiya (Joyner), those girls give us some size down there. So, we\u2019ve got a mixture of size. We\u2019ve got a mixture of athleticism. It\u2019ll be fun to watch them develop,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Koval averaged 5.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.3 assists as a freshman last year at Notre Dame and made the All-Atlantic Coast Conference freshmen first team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like how she involves everybody, and she\u2019s very confident,\u201d Mulkey said. <\/p>\n

Joyner averaged 12.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 1.9 assist and 1.4 blocks in her three seasons at East Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think we got a steal in the portal with her,\u201d Mulkey said. \u201cI\u2019m really impressed with things that she can do physically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The names may have changed, but rebounding and defense will remain the name of the game for Mulkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll my teams through the years have always been good rebounding teams, and we\u2019re going to guard you,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve already had some workouts where we didn\u2019t pick up a basketball. We just worked on defense, so they\u2019ll be a team that those two things will be important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey has failed to reach the Final Four in back-to-back seasons after winning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":251081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,132945,2970,16660,132946,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-251080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kim-mulkey","10":"tag-lsu","11":"tag-lsu-tigers","12":"tag-lsu-womens-basektball","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaabasketball","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115259285973376634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}