Kim Mulkey Has Developed The Tigers’ Inside Game Early This Season

By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter

The No. 5 LSU women’s basketball team (12-0) will be checking under the hood with two more light, non-conference games before opening Southeastern Conference play.

The Tigers host Texas Arlington (5-5) on Sunday (1 p.m., SEC Network) and Alabama State (3-6) on Dec. 28 (3 p.m., SEC Network) before their SEC opener against No. 12 Kentucky (11-1) on New Year’s (7 p.m., SEC Network+) at home.

LSU has blown out its competition in every game, but coach Kim Mulkey has been able to use the light fodder to find out about her team under no SEC stress, particularly her post players. The Tigers didn’t return a big before adding senior Amiya Joyner and sophomore Kate Koval from the portal and freshmen Grace Knox and ZaKiyah Johnson.

And so far, so good. The four are effectively collaborating in the paint to replace what former Tiger Aneesah Morrow produced over the past two seasons. Mulkey, who is known for producing some of the best post players, plans on getting the most out of all four in the SEC regardless of who starts.

“Our posts are producing, and I don’t know from game to game which one I’m going to start,” she said after the win over Morgan State on Tuesday. “So, there’s no two that are always going to play together. That will change the entire year because all four of them can play, and they can all four help us. It will really depend on the scouting report.”

All four of LSU’s post players are averaging in double-digit scoring: ZaKiyah Johnson (11.8 ppg), Koval (11.7 ppg), Joyner (10.5 ppg) and Grace Knox (10.4 ppg). Between the four, they average 25.2 rebounds per game.

Mulkey isn’t the only one who is enjoying the numerous options and combinations of post players and lineups on the court. Down low, Knox believes the Tigers can hurt opponents in several different ways.

“We’re a very versatile group,” Knox said after the Morgan State win. “I feel like we can go in with each other and use different strengths and just be able to score the ball, whether we have two bigs or two smalls or one and one. I feel like it works out pretty well with the style of play that we want.”

Knox (6-foot-2) and the 6-0 Johnson, who is listed as a guard, aren’t your typical post players, coming in shorter than most. But that can catch other bigs off guard.

“Me and Grace can use our speed to our advantage, so I just think it helps a lot,” Johnson said.

Johnson and Knox add versatility when Mulkey wants to go small or mix and match between the two with the 6-5 Koval and 6-2 Joyner.

“It’s definitely a lot of artillery,” Johnson said. “You can look at different lineups and switch it up and kind of just figure different things out.”