LSU's Kim Mulkey says illness 'might be COVID,' but won't test after women's basketball win

The first two weeks of LSU women’s basketball’s national title defense have been eventful, to put it mildly. On Friday, Tigers coach Kim Mulkey added another odd chapter to the story.

Following LSU’s 73-50 victory Friday against Southeastern Louisiana at the Pride Roofing University Center in Hammond, an audibly congested Mulkey finished her post-game news conference by commenting on her ailment, though unable to diagnose exactly what illness she had.

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“I ain’t a sissy. I don’t have allergies,” Mulkey said while holding a tissue. “I’ve got some kind of cold. It might be COVID, but I ain’t testing. It’s sinuses. I don’t know what you call it — allergies, flu, I don’t know. So if y’all get the flu, blame me during Thanksgiving.”

Mulkey’s comment about COVID-19, which she chuckled at after saying, isn’t the first time she has made news for her comments about the disease.

While still the coach at Baylor during the 2021 NCAA Tournament (which was being played entirely in the San Antonio due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic), Mulkey said the NCAA should stop testing players and coaches for the disease during the Final Four and national championship, a remark that drew criticism.

"They need to dump the COVID testing,” Mulkey said at the time. “Wouldn't it be a shame to keep COVID testing and then you got kids that test positive or something and they don't get to play in the Final Four? So you just need to forget the COVID tests and get the four teams playing in each Final Four and go battle it out."

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Mulkey is in her third season at LSU and guided the Tigers to their first-ever national championship last season. She won three national championships at Baylor, giving her the third-most titles ever by a Division I coach, behind only UConn’s Geno Auriemma and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt.

After winning the title last season, LSU returned most of its top scorers and added several key pieces from the transfer portal — namely, Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith and DePaul’s Aneesah Morrow — helping it earn a preseason No. 1 ranking in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

Since then, however, the Tigers lost to Colorado by 14 in their season-opener in Las Vegas and, in recent days, their star player, first-team all-American Angel Reese, has been mysteriously absent. Reese, the 6-3 forward who was the catalyst of last season’s national championship run, did not play in the second half of a 109-79 win against Kent State on Tuesday, which Mulkey described as a “coach’s decision.” In Friday’s win against Southeastern Louisiana, Reese did not suit up for LSU, with Mulkey declining to explain why.

"Angel is a part of this basketball team and we hope she's back with the team soon,” Mulkey said. “I'm not gonna answer any more than that."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: LSU coach Kim Mulkey says illness 'might be COVID, but I ain't testing'