BATON ROUGE, La. — The LSU women's basketball National Champions are headed back home to Baton Rouge.
The university will welcome head coach Kim Mulkey and the national champs at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 12:30 p.m. The event will be streamed live on WWLTV.com and on WWL+
Mulkey's Tigers used a record offensive performance to beat Caitlin Clark and Iowa 102-85 on Sunday and win the first basketball title, men's or women's, in school history.
“I turn around and look at the Final Four banners (in the home arena), nowhere did it say national champion,” Mulkey said. “That’s what I came home to do.”
The victory made Mulkey the first women's coach to win national titles at two different schools. She won three at Baylor before leaving for LSU two years ago.
The feisty and flamboyantly dressed Mulkey, who wore a sparkly, golden, tiger-striped outfit, now has the third-most national titles behind Geno Auriemma's 11 and Pat Summitt's eight. Mulkey has never lost in a championship game.
“My tears are tears of joy," she said. “I’m so happy for everybody back home in Louisiana.”
The 102 points broke the previous high for a championship game, surpassing the 97 that Texas scored against Southern California in 1986.
“So much for preaching defense and rebounding,” Mulkey said, laughing.
Jasmine Carson scored 22 points, Alexis Morris added 21 and Angel Reese had 15 points and 10 rebounds for LSU (34-2).
“It’s no one-man show around here. When I go down, the next man is up,” said Reese, who was honored as the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. "Every single time, every time I go out or Alexis goes out, everybody always comes to step up.”
LSU shot 58% from the field in the opening 20 minutes, including going nine for 12 from behind the arc. The Tigers finished the game shooting 54% from the field, including making 11 of 17 3-pointers.
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