By KACE KIESCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
There has been plenty made of the lack of experienced bigs on Kim Mulkey’s ninth-ranked 2026-2027 LSU women’s basketball team, and rightfully so.
That concern rose significanlty when the expected starting center, Kate Koval, transferred less than three months before Monday’s season opener against Southeastern Louisiana (6 p.m., SEC Network).
Despite Koval’s departure, the Tigers were still picked to finish third in a loaded Southeastern Conference by the media and coaches in their preseason polls. The aspirations around Mulkey’s squad is still that of a national championship, and the belief in that goal as possible is real.
Why?
Because although the Tigers are green on the inside, this year’s team features one of the most talented perimeter groups Mulkey perhaps has ever coached.
It may be a slight deviation from the norm for Mulkey, whose best teams have been led by physical stars in the post. But LSU can be just as effective this season if they play a different style of basketball – a style they have already shown the willingness to try through the preseason.
Small Ball.
The Tigers are led by a trio of guards with All-America potential. Wing Mikaylah Williams has already been named an All-American honorable mention and first team All-SEC the past two seasons. She can score at all three levels but excels in the catch and shoot game, making 50.7 percent of her shots last season and 42 percent of her threes. The 6-foot senior can play any position in the backcourt comfortably and has prioritized her conditioning this offseason to play extra minutes and step up her defensive game.
Williams’s versatility is perfectly complimented by the explosiveness of MiLaysia Fulwiley. Speed is the name of the game for the 5-9 senior from Columbia, South Carolina. Fulwiley blurs past defenders driving through the lane and outpaces opponents in transition on breaks often started by using her quick hands defensively to grab one of the 2.8 steals she averaged a game last season.
“Lay can harass the ball as well as any player I’ve ever coached,” Mulkey said. “She can harass you to death on ball, and what I want her to do is, I want her to be such a presence defensively when she’s not on the ball, when she’s on help side.”
After playing a lot of point guard during her first season at LSU, the primary two-guard has developed as a playmaker. While she is most effective as a defensive pest and lightning-quick scorer, averaging a team-high 14.6 points per game last year, she has already shown the ability to be the primary ball-handler in the offense and facilitate for her teammates. In LSU’s first preseason exhibition this season, a 159-31 blowout of North Texas-Dallas, she had 17 assists to go along with 32 points.
Still, Fulwiley is most comfortable as a shooting guard. That is why Iowa State senior transfer Jada Williams was brought in to run the offense. The 5-foot-6 floor general was third in the nation with 7.7 assists a game during a first-team All-Big 12 season last year. She prides herself on creating for her teammates and wants to bring that average up to 10 assists a game as a Tiger, but she too can do more than just the one specialty. She has improved as a shooter in each of her three collegiate seasons and averaged 15.3 points a game last year. Through two exhibitions she was 8-of-13 from the floor and 4-of-6 from three.
“She kind of does it all that you want a point guard to do and more, and I’m really excited about her,” Mulkey said of her new point guard.
The seniors form a dynamic trio that can run up the score on teams with Jada Williams’s vision, Mikaylah Williams’s shooting and Fulwiley’s penetration. Their offensive games compliment each other well, and they each have the versatility to impact the game in multiple ways. Defensively, both Jada and Mikaylah Williams may need to step up from their play from last year if the Tigers do not have an established rim protector on the inside. But neither is a liability either, and each have the ability to do so.
That end of the floor is also where the reserves shine. Florida senior guard Laila Reynolds, like Fulwiley, is an explosive athlete who can get up and down the floor, but at 6-0, she also has excellent length on the perimeter to be a lockdown defender. She also brings three years of experience as a starter in the SEC.
Sophomore ZaKiyah Johnson is poised to move back out to the perimeter after a freshman campaign on the inside. It remains to be seen exactly how her minutes will shake out this season and where on the floor they will come as freshman forward Anna Minaeva adapts to the college game and senior forward Noa Morro returns from injury, but Johnson is an excellent interior scorer and rebounder – something Mulkey will need from her guards this season. If she does indeed reprise her role in the post, that would only help the Tigers’ effort to play quickly at every position.
“She’s just a special talent that you’ll say to yourself, ‘How’d she get that shot off in there amongst those big girls?’ But she does,” Mulkey said. “She’s got a quick jumper. She runs the floor really well.”
It is those five guards players that Mulkey will lean on to supplement any deficiencies in the paint. Tennessee Tech junior transfer Chloe Larry rounds out the unit as the three-level scorer adapts to her new level of basketball.
LSU was at its best in the preseason when it could simply outrun its opposition. If the Tigers can generate turnovers with a lineup that features any combination of three or even four of the guards along with athletes like sophomore forward Grace Knox and freshman guard Lola Lampley in the paint, they will not find a team that can keep up with them until December. It is a style of play LSU fans may not be used to seeing, one that will need to feature more press defense and transition offense, but it can be equally impactful as an offense that led the nation with 95 points a game a season ago.
LSU lost starting guards Flau’Jae Johnson and Jada Richard from last season’s squad. They accounted for 23.7 points and 5.8 assists a game last season, but that production can be replaced and spread around by Mulkey’s first true pass-first point guard in years, and increase in minutes for Fulwiley and an overall faster pace thanks to a lineup that will often feature four guards
Concerns of rebounding, size and defense on the inside are still very real, but LSU will have time to get Morro back at the end of November and for Minaeva to continue to progress. Even with them on the court, the strength of this team is its guard play, and Mulkey and her staff will need to embrace that as they look to break through their postseason block and return to the Final Four for the first time since 2023.
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