ALBANY, N.Y. — LSU coach Kim Mulkey declined comment Friday on whether she has heard from The Washington Post in the six days since she threatened legal action against the newspaper.
Mulkey, speaking at a press conference before a Sweet 16 matchup against UCLA, said: “All I am focused on is to try and win another basketball game.”
As a reporter attempted to ask a follow up question, Mulkey said: “I’m only here today to talk about the next game,” before an NCAA moderator stepped in to say only questions about the matchup would be allowed.
Leading into a second-round game against Middle Tennessee last week, Mulkey read a statement in which she said the paper has spent two years pursuing a “hit piece” about her. Washington Post reporter Kent Babb confirmed he is working on a profile of Mulkey.
The Washington Post has yet to publish its Mulkey story.
Inside the LSU open locker room, players said they were simply focused on beating UCLA and taking another step in its quest to win a second straight national championship.
“This isn’t the worst thing has happened to us this season,” LSU forward Angel Reese said. “If you’ve been keeping up, way more things have come our way. So add another thing to the book, add another thing to the list. We’re not distracted. We’re still focused on the main goal, and that’s to win one game at a time.”
Added guard Hailey Van Lith: “That’s something that we don’t want to give attention to right now. Coach Mulkey is here to coach us to win another national championship and that’s what we’re focused on. This program, we care about each other. But at the end of the day, Coach Mulkey wants us to focus on this.”
Despite being the reigning national champions, Van Lith and others have tried to keep their underdog mentality.
“We’re choosing to focus on how a lot of people think they can knock us off because that gives us the underdog edge, and we perform better with the underdog edge,” Van Lith said. “That’s just the makeup of our team and that’s how we respond. So we’re playing the mind game there with ourselves a little bit, like everybody wants us to be knocked off, everyone thinks they can beat us, everyone doesn’t think we’re going to win. So that’s what we’re choosing to put our energy into because ultimately that’s going to motivate us to get the best results.”
As for trying to thrive on that underdog mentality, despite teams trying to stop them from winning another championship, guard Last-Tear Poa said: “Obviously, a lot of people don’t like us. Just trying to be humble about it. I think coming to this team this year, it’s not about what we did last year. That’s in the past, just keeping our heads up and showing the younger ones what it’s like.”
Sophomore guard Flau’jae Johnson said it was easy to feel like an underdog because of the way this season has paralleled last season. LSU went into last year’s tournament as a No. 3 seed, and thrived on the idea that nobody expected them to win a title. To that point, Mulkey said: “My team seems to be as focused as they were when we won it all last year.”
LSU is a No. 3 seed again, which makes Johnson feel as if the Tigers are not a favorite to repeat.
“I feel like people want to see us lose,” Johnson said. “But that’s why I can keep that chip on my shoulder and try to play the best that I can. I’m trying to encourage my teammates to do that as well. It’s just having that underdog energy. I think we got that because a lot of people doubt us. Because we’re the reigning champions, I mean we came out and the season didn’t go as perfect as it was supposed to go, we’re kind of underdogs again in our head.
“We’re just taking that mentality and trying to take it all the way.”