Pinned
Louisiana State Coach Kim Mulkey had been trying to temper expectations all season.
She had added nine new players. Who knew how they would gel? In her second year coaching at L.S.U., nobody should expect a national championship, she argued.
But there was Mulkey in Sunday’s national championship game, clad in sequin pantsuit that looked like a something between a disco ball and an exploded glitter bomb, leading the third seeded Tigers to their first women’s basketball championship with a convincing victory, 102-85, over Iowa and its superstar shooter Caitlin Clark.
The Tigers, behind the towering, smack-talking forward Angel Reese and the surprise shooting spark of Jasmine Carson, brought Clark and college basketball’s most exciting show to a screeching stop, ending one of the most electrifying individual runs in recent tournament history.