“We did it out of desperation”: Kim Mulkey shows discontent after Flau'jae Johnson and Kailyn Gilbert pull off “unclean” win
Flau’jae Johnson and Kailyn Gilbert orchestrated a nailbiter as Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers converted a final second shot to defeat Washington Huskies 68-67. LSU trailed by one point in the closing seconds of the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship’s opening contest on Monday. After Last-Tear Poa’s pass fumbled towards the backcourt, Johnson hurried to save the backcourt violation.
As Gilbert grabbed the ball, she drove towards the basket, launching an acrobatic layup with 0.9 seconds remaining. While talking on TigerBait, Kim Mulkey said that the winning points came out of a necessity to score and the exceptional basketball talent on her roster
"KG is our best dribble penetrator and she knew the clock was winding down and just went in there, that was not clean at all," Mulkey said. "As I told them, when you see zones - that's not a magic play coaches gonna call a timeout and say 'if you do this we're going to score'. I've got about six quick hitters I've got a couple of zone, main offenses." (5:00)
"None of them really work today, none of them really work today. So at the end of the day, ballers honestly have to go make plays whether that's in transition, in the open floor, whether that's on the defensive end, whatever it is. And we did it out of desperation there in the last part of the game," she added.
Despite the close game, Kim Mulkey saw a praiseworthy effort from LSU
Due to the significant changes in the roster from the previous season, Kim Mulkey is still observing and assessing her players. While there were several low points in the game, Mulkey highlighted her team's dominant performance in the paint, saying:
"If you look at our post-game we had 27 offensive boards and both post players had double-doubles, they were battling in there...for those two kids to have double-doubles, and our perimeter is supposed to be our strength, well, that was good for our team because it'll help with confidence." (5:53)
As Flau'Jae Johnson led the backcourt with 19 points and four steals, Sa'Myah Smith (16 points and 15 rebounds) and Aneesah Morrow (19 points and 13 rebounds) notched up double-doubles. They outscored the entire Huskies roster in offensive boards, combining for 17 as opposed to Washington's 10.