BATON ROUGE – LSU women’s basketball is rolling right now.
Kim Mulkey‘s team just grabbed its fifth straight Southeastern Conference win, throttling Florida, 89-60, inside Pete Maravich Assembly Center on a cold Monday night in Baton Rouge.
Temperatures may have been dropping but inside the No. 6 Tigers (19-2, 5-2 SEC) stayed hot as sophomore point guard Jada Richard scored a season-high 20 points but more importantly, limited the Gators’ best player, Liv McGill, to just 14 points on 6 of 17 shooting.
LSU out-rebounded Florida 48 to 28 and only turned the ball over five times in the second half to pull away early in the third quarter.
Here’s everything Mulkey said about her team’s performance in the victory over the Gators.
Kim Mulkey on Jada Richard’s progression
“Jada grew up being a point guard. It’s not some magical thing I’ve done other toughen her up, change a few mannerisms, make her understand you won four state championships and you had to be the scorer. You don’t have to be the scorer here but you can be. It wasn’t like she didn’t have those skills last year it was just adjusting to this level of college.”
Kim Mulkey on LSU women’s basketball spreading shots around
“I think that’s part of our identity. Who are you going to stop? Usually you have three or four. You never know from game to game who I’m going to start in the post. All four of them could start and have started. Look at Flau’jae (Johnson) and Mikaylah (Williams) rebounds. If they can give us rebounds like that every night, six, seven rebounds. Look at Kate, Kate gives you 10 rebounds in 15 minutes played. Probably should’ve given her more minutes in the first half. Grace, the thing she did tonight is got in foul trouble.”
Kim Mulkey on why she’s not set on a starting lineup
“I’m really not settled on any of them. I can start (MiLaysia Fulwiley) tomorrow in place of Jada. It’s not anything other than well Jada – I might need Jada to go in when these two sub in against a certain opponent because she knows how to feed them better. I have a lot of decisions that I can make the rest of this year. I can go big still, I can go small in there. It looks like I do because the last four or five games but (LSU associated head coach Bob Starkey) and I discuss in detail, ‘Are these the ones that need to start? Are these the ones the need to be on the floor playing together?’ You’re seeing a lot more of Jada and (Fulwiley) on the floor together. That’s your two primary ball handlers with Mikaylah being your third primary ball hander. You’re seeing a lot more of that. That brings a level of quickness that maybe we don’t start. But if they’re in there together, you can’t help but be quicker when (Fulwiley’s) on the floor.”
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: What Kim Mulkey said following LSU women’s basketball win over Florida
