"It's crazy how she just crashes the boards": When Kim Mulkey heaped praise for Angel Reese's 1 trait ahead of her junior season

LSU coach Kim Mulkey and her former star player Angel Reese share an unbreakable bond as they delivered a national college championship together.

Mulkey arrived in Baton Rouge in 2021, ready to take on the monumental task of rebuilding the LSU Tigers and restoring their prominence in the SEC and national landscape.

She was fresh off a legendary tenure at Baylor, reaping three national championships before assuming the mantle in Louisiana, eager to replicate that success. In her first season, the Tigers improved to a 26-6 record from a dismal 9-13 mark the previous year.

For her second season, Kim Mulkey made a significant addition by recruiting Angel Reese, a transfer from Maryland. Mulkey sat down with Jacques Doucet of WAFB at SEC Media Days in Oct. 2022, where she talked about how Reese will shape the future of LSU.

"She's a phenomenal offensive rebounder. It's crazy how she just crashes the boards," Mulkey said (at 2:49). "Angel — I'd pick on her all the time. I don't know which hand is her dominant hand.

"She's just a competitor. You'll hear her a lot on the floor — she's very vocal. You can coach competitors, and boy, she has fit right in with our team."

Doucet then cited Alexis Morris' sentiments about Reese's uncanny ability to find the ball. Mulkey responded by praising the connection between perimeter players and post players, comparing it to the dynamic between quarterbacks and linemen in football.

Angel Reese dreaded Kim Mulkey's coaching style which shaped her WNBA mindset

When Angel Reese joined the LSU Tigers, she was not a fan of coach Kim Mulkey's long and demanding practices. However, Reese came to appreciate the high level of training that prepared her for the WNBA.

"I think mentally, physically for sure — practices were very long and it was easy for me to do training camp," Reese said after the preseason matchup against Brazil at the PMAC, which served as a homecoming for her (per CBS). "There's not really anything anybody can say to me as a coaching staff that can break me ... or say things that get me going because I went through Kim Mulkey.

"In the moment I hated it. I'm not gonna lie, I hated it and I dreaded it and I didn't like it. But when I left I'm like, I was really thankful for that."

Reese became a national phenomenon in the 2022-23 season as she led the Tigers to their first NCAA championship. She was selected seventh overall by the Chicago Sky in last year's WNBA draft.