Mulkey Leads Historic Turnaround In First Year A LSU

BATON ROUGE – The improvement for LSU Women’s Basketball going from 9-13 last year to 25-4 this season in Coach Kim Mulkey’s first year as LSU’s head coach is the largest turnaround by a first-year coach in SEC history.

As of today, it is a 12.5 game improvement based on the NCAA formula which takes wins differential and losses differential from one year to the next into account. Depending on how LSU fares in the postseason, the official improvement number will change.

Coach Mulkey has led two of the greatest single season turnarounds by a first-year head coach at a school; first at Baylor and now at LSU.

NCAA DI First Year Head Coach Improvements [(Wins Diff. + Losses Diff.) / 2]

Coach                                                  School                         Improvement

Cynthia Cooper-Dykes                         Texas Southern           14.5

Brenda Oldfield                                   Minnesota                   13

Kim Mulkey                                         Baylor                          12.5

Katie Abrahamson-Henderson           UCF                             12.5

Kim Mulkey                                         LSU                              12.5*

Nate Kilbert                                         Ark.-Pine Bluff             11.5

Michelle Clark-Heard                          Western Kentucky      11.5

Todd Starkey                                       Kent St.                       11.5

*Is active and will change depending on postseason outcomes

The Tigers have surged in the first season of the Coach Mulkey era, entering the postseason at No. 8 in the AP Poll. The Tigers were picked in the preseason to finish No. 8 in the SEC, but LSU went 13-3 in conference play to go to Nashville as the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament.

It is likely that no matter what happens later this week at the SEC Tournament that LSU will host first and second round games of the NCAA Tournament inside the PMAC as one of the Top-16 seeds in the field. The last time LSU hosted NCAA Tournament games was in 2014. The Tigers were a No. 7 seed that year, but to find the last time LSU was one of the Top-16 seeds one would have to go back to 2008 when LSU was the No. 2 seed in the Oklahoma City Regional.

This year also marks the first time since that same 2007-08 season that the Tigers have won 25 games in the regular season. With six wins over teams ranked in the AP Poll, LSU has surged into the Top-10 this year. This marks the 13^th consecutive week LSU has appeared in the AP Poll and the second straight week the Tigers are in the Top-10. The last time LSU entered postseason play ranked inside the Top-10 was 2007-08.

LSU Statistical Improvements