ALBANY, N.Y. — There was joy, because of course there is when a team survives and advances to March. Flau’jae Johnson, who scored 24 points to lead LSU past UCLA, arrived to Tigers family and friends in the stands with a big, bright smile.
But about 15 minutes later, Johnson’s guard was back as she sat next to Angel Reese and Anissa Morrow during a post-fight press conference. So does Rhys. Morrow’s too. Yes, the Tigers were happy to advance to the Elite Eight. But they know exactly how the world sees them and they don’t always appreciate it.
“We’re the good bad guys,” Reese said. “Everybody wants to beat LSU. Everyone wants to be LSU. Everyone wants to play against LSU. You have to understand that we are not a normal basketball team. Coach (Kim Mulkey) talks about it all the time. he calls us ‘The Beatles’. People are running after our bus. People come to our games. You see sales, you see people buying jerseys, you see more sales than men.
“We impact the game so much and all of us are extremely competitive and want to win and do whatever it takes to win. We’re just changing the game.”
Reese noted that she receives criticism for her modeling, which she enjoys in addition to basketball. “I can do both,” he said. Johnson is regularly asked about her second career as a rapper. “Flau’jae can do both.”
“We can all do both,” Rees continued. “People don’t believe that. They don’t think we’re focused, and we prove every night when we get between those lines, we’re focused. This is what worries us.”
“People are going to bash me for rapping and hooping, so I know I have to go really hard.” “She’s rapping, her new single is ‘It Ain’t My Fault’ but today, this win was your fault.” “It’s our fault!” Great Flau’jae Johnson post game interview by Holly Rowe. pic.twitter.com/6GpOxPq9uf
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 30, 2024
“Just being able to have teammates have my back, have teammates, have coaches have each other all this time. I don’t care what the outside (world) thinks,” Rees said. “I know what goes on in that locker room.”
Before the season and at points during it, many outside the program wondered how it would work — adding Hailey Van Lith from Louisville and Morrow from DePaul — with only one basketball to share. And with a coach who isn’t afraid to say what he wants about it all (and isn’t afraid to bench a star).
“People are always telling us how we should act, how we should dress, how we should talk,” Johnson said. “But there have never been people who have done this before.”
He is right. These LSU players have lived on the cusp of the era of name, image and likeness, balancing their lives as students, athletes and entrepreneurs in a way we’ve never seen before.
Malki tells them to be who they are and she will fight for them. She wrote Saturday in a Los Angeles Times column that she said her team represented “bad” against UCLA’s “good guys” and that the Tigers were “dirty rookies.”
“How dare people attack children like this?” Malki said. “You don’t have to like the way we play. You don’t have to like the way we trash talk. You don’t have to like any of it. We’re fine with that. But I can’t sit here as a mother and a grandmother and a youth leader and allow someone to say that.”
Kim Mulkey was asked about people’s perception of her team at LSU.
In her response, she mentioned the recent LA Times article she read about the game between UCLA and LSU.
“I’m not going to let sexism continue… How dare people attack children like this.” pic.twitter.com/72YwVnmwyv
— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) March 30, 2024
That’s what LSU wanted to talk about after a thrilling win over UCLA on Saturday. This is what this coach and these players think and deal with every day. And it’s in large part because of the way this team was presented to most of America — with last year’s title game, with the derision, with all the talk (which it supported).
So it looks like Malkey and Reese again as they prepare for a rematch against Iowa. They don’t have to be liked, but they demand to be respected. As the Tigers continue to win and chase a second straight national championship, that’s what they’ll be waiting for.
“We won at the highest level in college, and we didn’t have any composure,” Reese said. “But I wouldn’t want to change (that to) today. I wouldn’t want to change where we are right now. I wouldn’t want to change the three letters on my chest because it means something and I want to be a part of history.”
(Photo by Flau’jae Johnson, left, and Angel Reese: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
