Angel Reese spent her final two college seasons at LSU, where she helped the Tigers win the first national championship in program history, and blossomed into a first-round WNBA draft pick. While her time in Baton Rouge was successful, she said it wasn’t always enjoyable.
On Friday, Reese and the Chicago Sky were on LSU’s campus for a preseason game against the Brazilian national team that served as a homecoming for Reese and 2025 first-round pick Hailey Van Lith. Prior to finishing with 15 points and 10 rebounds in an 89-62 win, Reese spoke to the media and admitted there were times that she “hated” playing for Tigers coach Kim Mulkey, but later realized that her methods got her ready for the next level.
“She prepared me for the WNBA,” Reese said of Mulkey. “I think mentally, physically for sure — practices were very long and it was easy for me to do training camp. There’s not really anything anybody can say to me as a coaching staff that can break me, or tell me anything that I don’t know about myself, or say things that get me going because I went through Kim Mulkey. She’s gonna tell it like it is, she’s gonna keep it real with you and I appreciate that. 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. It didn’t make sense in the moment but now it all makes sense.
“Like why I was able to be so dominant in my rookie year was because I was able to go so hard every day. I had no excuses. She didn’t let you come into practice and B.S. Every day was hard work. So I think that’s something I always give kudos too. That’s why she has a lot of players in the W.”
Reese and Mulkey clashed at times during their two seasons together.
During Reese’s senior season, she was benched for the second half of a win over Kent State, then missed the team’s next four games for unspecified “locker-room issues.” In Kent Babb’s expose on Mulkey in The Washington Post in March of 2024, he reported that the veteran coach complained about Reese’s social media use and indicated that her star forward had been left off the Wooden Award list due to academic issues.
Mulkey is a no-nonsense coach who is not always easy to play for, but Reese is ultimately thankful for her style.
During her rookie season with the Sky, Reese averaged 13.6 points and a league-leading 13.1 rebounds per game, which was also the highest single-season rebounding average in league history. In addition, Reese’s 172 offensive rebounds were a single-season record, and her 15 consecutive double-doubles was also the longest such streak all-time.
Reese and the new-look Sky, will play two more preseason games on May 6 and May 10, both against the Minnesota Lynx, before tipping off their regular season campaign on May 17 against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.