LSU reserves propel Tigers to 2023 NCAA championship

DALLAS — LSU Tigers coach Kim Mulkey criticized her bench after an ineffective first half against the Virginia Tech Hokies during Friday's national semifinals. Graduate student Jasmine Carson, freshman Sa'Myah Smith and sophomore Last-Tear Poa came away with a collective minus-14 in a combined 17 minutes before finishing with zero points by game's end.

«They didn't take that lightly,» Tigers star sophomore forward Angel Reese said of Mulkey's challenge. «Coach gets on everybody, and I think they took that personal.»

Amid early foul trouble to their starters on Sunday, LSU's «role players» stepped up massively on the biggest of stages, helping the Tigers score an NCAA title game record of 102 points versus the Iowa Hawkeyes on their way to winning the school's first basketball national championship. Carson contributed 22, three points shy of her season high and four off her career high. It was the Tigers' sixth 100-point game of the season but the first since nonconference play in November.

«I already knew [Iowa guard Caitlin Clark] could score 50; you still ain't gonna beat us as a team,» LSU freshman Flau'jae Johnson said. «We just put 100 on the board. You've got to look at the stat sheet.»

LSU beat Iowa 102-85.

After Iowa coach Lisa Bluder warned that LSU was similar to South Carolina but «almost with a little bit better shooters,» Mulkey's squad lived up to the billing by hitting 11 3-pointers (five from Carson), tied for their most in a game this season. The Tigers had made just seven 3s across their previous three NCAA tournament contests but took notice of how the Hawkeyes were massively sagging off South Carolina's perimeter players in the semifinals.

«As a shooter, when somebody sags off you, that's the green