By KACE KIESCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
LSU guard Mikaylah Williams has one more exhibition game on Thursday night against Loyola New Orleans (7 p.m.) before her senior season tips off on Monday against Southeastern Louisiana (6 p.m.). The Bossier City native has dedicated her entire college career to the team she grew up dreaming of playing for.
“I came here and did what most girls from where I’m from don’t think is possible to do,” she said. “Everybody from Louisiana, that’s their dream to come to LSU, play basketball for LSU, play basketball for Coach (Kim) Mulkey, and I just wanted to be remembered as somebody that did it and somebody that can do it at the highest level.”
The highest level is exactly what she has played at over her three seasons as a Tiger.
Williams enrolled at LSU in 2023 as a five-star combo guard out of Parkway High School. Her first season, she was the Southeastern Conference freshman of the year after averaging 14.5 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game. As a sophomore, she improved to 17.3 points and 3.4 assists per game and picked up first-team All-SEC honors. She was first-team all-conference again last season with 14.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game.
Williams helped LSU to back-to-back Elite Eights in her first two seasons and suffered a heartbreaking loss in the Sweet 16 last year. She said that she has unfinished business at LSU before she moves on to a certain WNBA career. To put that business to rest, she said it will take selflessness in her senior season.
“It’s easy to be like, ‘Oh, I want to shoot all the shots and score 20-plus and get all the rebounds,’ but it’s really just to take my team as far as it can go,” Williams said. “That’s my individual goal. It’s to just make everybody around me better.”
The typically reserved star is taking on a new role in the LSU locker room. With team leaders like Flau’Jae Johnson off to the professional ranks, Williams joins guard MiLaysia Fulwiley as the only returning seniors in Baton Rouge. That veteran status and dedication to team success is driving her to be a more vocal leader for the Tigers this season, something she has learned how to be during her time at LSU.
“Something Coach (Bob) Starkey and Coach Mulkey always say is, ‘knowledge is power,’” Williams said. “I’ve learned the system. I’ve been to the Elite Eight. I’ve been to the Sweet 16. So it’s like at this point, I’m just trying to tell everybody else how that feels, what you need to do to get there. I’ve really just stepped into that role to just lead my team to where I know we can go.”
Having that seasoned voice in the locker room and on the court will be critical for an LSU squad that is more green to SEC basketball than in years past.
Jada Williams, Laila Reynolds and Noa Morro are the three other seniors on the team, and while Reynolds was a three-year starter at Florida, the other two are new to the conference. Jada Williams transferred in from Iowa State, and Morro will be playing her first NCAA basketball after playing professionally in Europe. The rest of the team is made up of one junior, three sophomores and two freshmen.
“We’re very young and very new, but at the end of the day, as long as we come here to play hard, play confident, and play fast, and play defense, I think we’ll be okay,” Mikaylah Williams said.
When Williams first arrived in Baton Rouge, she joined an LSU team coming off the program’s first national championship. It had veteran leaders like Angel Reese, Aneesah Morrow and Hailey Van Lith. Williams had proven stars to learn from and a front row seat to Johnson’s growth as well. Just like her upperclassmen did for her, she is now passing on that experience to her younger teammates.
The senior said her message to them is, “If you know, speak up. Even if you don’t know, as long as you’re speaking and communicating, we can fix that.”
“I think our biggest thing is just communicating with each other. We have great team chemistry. We love each other on and off the court, so just just taking that into account and just communicating and talking to each other.”
And Williams’s leadership is not just heard. It is seen on the court in her willingness to do whatever it takes for the team to win. With another roster overhaul this season, she said she is adapting her game to do whatever Mulkey asks of her, playing whatever position is necessary – one through five.
“Leading by example is more natural to me, but knowing that we have a lot of new people and a lot of young people, speaking up, speaking, and using my words is something that I’m learning, something that Coach Mulkey is asking me to do and something that I think I’m getting the hang of,” she said. “As long as I lead by example and speak up to them and tell them where to go, how to do it, I think we’ll be alright.”
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