NEW ORLEANS — Kim Mulkey went after another reporter after the Tigers topped UCLA to make the Elite Eight for the second season in a row.
Mulkey put her arm around a tearful Flau’jae Johnson in the post game, consoling her as she ran the gamut of emotions between being the star of the game and reflecting on the sacrifices that her mother had made for her.
But Mulkey’s soothing tone lasted until the players were dismissed and the media questions came her way.
She especially had her ire set on the Los Angeles Times and writer Ben Bolch who wrote a column entitled: UCLA-LSU is America’s sweethearts vs. its basketball villains
He jumps on Mulkey and her team and doesn’t mince words: "Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutantes? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce?
The team that wants to grow women’s basketball or the one seemingly hellbent on dividing it?
Mulkey said that while she is fair game, her players aren’t and she was just as heated as she had been a week earlier when complaining about what she expected to be a “hit piece” by the Washington Post, a story that came out earlier Saturday.
“You can criticize coaches all you want. That’s our business. We expect that.. I’m not gonna let you attack young people and there were some things in this commentary that you should be offended by as women,” Mulkey said, directing her comment to some of the women in the media at the press conference.
“It was 'good vs. evil' in that game today. Called us ‘dirty debutantes.’ I’m not going to let you talk about 18 to 21 year old kids in that tone.”
Mulkey said she Googled ‘dirty debutantes’ and gasped at what came up.
But she said even Bolch’s comment about UCLA being “milk and cookies” was sexist.
“You women sit there and you keep your mouth shut if you want,” she said. “I’m in the last third of my career and I’m not going to let sexism continue. How dare people attack kids like that?”
It does seem like the LSU team is using the attacks and villainous portrayals as a rallying point, but Mulkey said she had a bigger point to prove.
“You don’t have to like the way we play. You don’t have to like the way we trash talk. You don’t have to like any of that. We’re good with that. But I can’t sit up here as a mother and a grandmother as a leader of young people and allow somebody to say that.”
Mulkey and LSU aren’t done yet. They’ll play Monday night in the Elite Eight with a spot in the Final Four at stake. You can believe that you’ll hear a lot more from Mulkey and her team before and after that game and perhaps for another 10 days.