By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
MiLaysia Fulwiley decided she needed a fresh start after her sophomore season at South Carolina in 2024-25.
The shooting guard from Columbia, South Carolina, had never left her hometown and wanted the chance to branch out somewhere new and play a new position – point guard. She entered the transfer portal last April 24, and a day later, committed to head coach Kim Mulkey and LSU – a heated rival of her former coach Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks.
“I still wanted to be in the SEC. I still wanted to play for a great coach, so that’s when I landed here,” Fulwiley said before this season. “I felt like LSU is a great program. They kind of play my style. I felt like I could probably be myself here, and that’s what I did. I needed a group of people that believed in me and just wanted to see me do better, because I want to better myself.”
On Saturday, Fulwiley will meet her team again in a key nationally televised match-up between No. 6 LSU (22-3, 8-3 SEC) and No. 3 and SEC-leading South Carolina (24-2, 10-1) at 7:30 p.m. on ABC at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Fulwiley averaged 11.7 points in each of her two seasons in Columbia and played a major role in the Gamecocks’ national championship in 2024 and runner-up finish last season. When she told South Carolina coach Dawn Staley she planned to transfer, it was a bit shocking.
“I think being in this space, you come to expect the unexpected,” Staley said on “The Breakfast Club” radio show last May 22. “I still have much love for MiLaysia, much love. I want her happy.”
But it’s safe to say Staley won’t be rooting for Fulwiley on Saturday in front of a sold-out arena of mostly LSU fans.
“It’s on,” Staley said. “She’s going to be super competitive against us, and we’re going to want to win. It’s going to be a pride thing and that comes from just being a competitor. We got much love with her and her family.”
Saturday’s top six showdown will be emotional for Fulwiley, but Mulkey isn’t concerned about her performance.
“Internally, a competitor wants to do really good against their former team, but she’s never said anything ugly about South Carolina,” Mulkey said. “She doesn’t have a bitterness. She just wanted to go somewhere, where she would have an opportunity to learn the point guard position. She liked our style of play, and I don’t think there was any animosity or hard feelings.”
But her heart will likely be beating faster than usual.
“Lay will be fine, except she’s probably, internally, going to be a little bit excited – have butterflies,” Mulkey said. “But she’s really a valuable part of our team (after) really allowing me to teach her a little bit about both guard positions.”
Fulwiley has shown significant statistical improvement across the board this season, developing into a more complete player than she was with the Gamecocks. In 21.6 minutes per game in 2025-26, she is averaging 13.4 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 3.6 steals, and 1.2 blocks – all increases from her time at South Carolina.
In the previous three matchups between the Gamecocks and Tigers (two in 2024 and one last year), Fulwiley served as Staley’s spark off the bench, averaging 13.3 points against LSU. This time, she could be a not-so-secret weapon for the Tigers against her former team.
Fulwiley’s knowledge and familiarity with Staley’s system could help the Tigers prepare for the match-up as LSU looks to end the Gamecocks’ 17-game winning streak in the series, which dates to Jan. 12, 2012.
“When you’re a player, you’re out there trying to do the best you can for the team you play for,” Mulkey said. “I don’t look at it as extra pressure on Lay.”
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