BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU head women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey has threatened to sue over an expected Washington Post article on her that she believes couldl be a “hatchet job.”
The always fiery and often controversial, but ultimately successful coach took the first two minutes of her press availability Saturday in advance of the second-round NCAA tournament game against Middle Tennessee to rail against the article, which is rumored, but has not yet been published.
College sports reporter Pat Forde posted on X (formerly Twitter) about an upcoming article in the Post on Mulkey and the coach seemed to have already had gotten wind of it.
“I’m not gonna let them attack this university, this awesome team of young women I have, or me without a fight,” said Mulkey.
The 4-time NCAA champion coach said that the Post contacted her and LSU on Tuesday of this week with what she said were a dozen questions and gave them a Thursday deadline to respond. LSU was in preparations for the opening NCAA tournament game against Rice at the time.
Mulkey didn’t mention what any of the questions were and said she would not answer any questions on her statement. But, it seemed that whatever those questions were, it gave her further hint that the piece would not paint her in a positive light.
“This was a ridiculous deadline that LSU and I could not possibly meet and the reporter knew it. It was just an attempt to keep me from commenting and an attempt to distract us from this tournament. It ain’t gonna work buddy.”
Mulkey said the post had been contacting former college coaches of hers and former players, including disgruntled ones, she said, “to get negative quotes to include in their story.”
At least one current LSU Tiger posted what appeared to be a very supportive Tweet Saturday afternoon as the story and Mulkey's comments made the rounds.
Flau' jae Johnson simply posted an image of she and Mulkey embracing from a game last season. In the past, Angel Reese, the highest profile player on the LSU team, has voiced her unequivocal support of Mulkey.
Mulkey said she had told the reporter on the story, who she did not name, that she was not pleased with a “hit piece” he had done on LSU football coach Brian Kelly two years ago and thus would not talk to him.
Mulkey said that if the story is published and if is, in her words, “false,” she will sue the paper.
She said she had contacted “the best defamation law firm in the country,” in case she needed to use them. She said that not many people are in a position to fight back against large media outlets, but that she is and she will.
“This is exactly why people don’t trust journalists and the media anymore,” she said. “It’s this kind of sleezy tactics and hatchet jobs that people are just tired of. I’m fed up.”
