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The LSU Lady Tigers crashed before the Auburn Tigers in a 62-67 defeat on Sunday at the Neville Arena, which ended their 16-game winning streak. Defending national champion LSU entered the game with the nation’s best-scoring offense at 93.8 points but Auburn forced 15 turnovers and held LSU to a season low in points in the home victory. In the aftermath of this defeat, star player Angel Reese took responsibility for the narrow loss but head coach Kim Mulkey’s comments were surprising given how she blamed “individual players” for their first defeat earlier in the season.
Reese led LSU with 24 points but offensive struggles from the rest of the team contributed to their downfall. The win was Auburn’s first over a top-10 opponent since beating No. 4 Tennessee at home in January 2022.
Mulkey questions her decision and holds herself ‘accountable’
While Reese posted on her social media networking platform X, “This one was on me. We good! Geaux Tigers!🐯💜💛”, Mulkey opened up on the reason behind the loss in the post-match press conference on Sunday. She mentioned that accountability starts with her also opened up on the decision to have her team visit the LSU men’s game the night before.
“Just accountability. And it’s not just with the players, starts with me. And told them things that maybe I made a decision to let them come to the men’s game last night. I’m going to regret that all the way home. That was out of our routine. I don’t regret supporting our men. But we’re creatures of habit. So did that disrupt your mindset? I don’t know that it did or didn’t. But when you have kids hold themselves accountable, you got to hold yourself accountable,” Mulkey stated in the post-match conference.
Notably, the LSU Lady Tigers had attended their men’s counterpart’s game before the match. The LSU Tigers men’s basketball team was defeated by the Auburn Tigers men’s team by a respectable margin of 78-93 at Neville Arena on Saturday. This ended their four-game winning streak.
A similar result was seen as the LSU Lady Tigers suffered a loss at the hands of the Auburn Lady Tigers by a narrow margin of 62-67 in front of 7,720 people, which was the largest crowd for a women’s game in the history of Auburn’s Neville Arena. With Mulkey taking responsibility for the defeat, it is still worth mentioning that Hailey Van Lith, Flau’jae Johnson, and Angel Reese each missed free throws in the final minutes while trailing Auburn 62-60 with less than two minutes left. Auburn’s tight defense didn’t allow LSU any space with Van Lith, Johnson, Last-Tear Poa, and freshman Mikaylah Williams combining for only 23 points.
Mulkey also chose not to call a timeout to draw up a play and decided to leave the ball in the hands of Angel Reese. Mulkey said she let Reese bring the ball up the floor because the LSU guards were struggling to throw entry passes to her in the post. But she later had a different view and said, “I just thought we were struggling, trying to make a pass to the wing and the wing down to her. I should never have to do things like that. I should be able to do what we normally do, but during the course of trying to win a game, sometimes you think outside of the box.” Mulkey’s comments about taking responsibility and being accountable were in contrast to the first game of the season when LSU lost to Colorado.
Mulkey openly questioned her team’s lack of fight in the season opener
Mulkey had previously blamed “individual players” and criticized them for lacking “little fight and leadership about them” when the LSU had lost their first match. The game was a season opener against the Colorado Buffaloes and the defending champions had lost by a decent margin of 78-92. The LSU since then improved their gameplay and went on 16-match landslide victories over their opponents.
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The LSU will next lock horns with the Alabama Crimson Tide at the Coleman Coliseum on Thursday. And perhaps with this loss they once again need to go to the locker room and look at the reasons in retrospect.
