LSU LADY TIGERS ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

What started as a group of assorted puzzle pieces turned into a stunning masterpiece on Sunday, as the LSU Women’s Basketball team won the 2023 NCAA National Championship game over Iowa, 102-85.

LSU Head Coach Kim Mulkey — who assembled nine transfers and freshmen to “Piece It 2gether” in her second season in Baton Rouge — brought the program its first Final Four victory in six attempts last Friday. Two days later, she led the flagship institution of her home state to its first NCAA Basketball Championship and the 50th team national title in LSU Athletics’ 130-year history.

It was the fourth championship in as many title game appearances in Mulkey’s coaching career (previous wins at Baylor in 2005, 2012, and 2019), as she became the first women’s basketball coach to win NCAA championships at multiple schools.

The Tigers will depart Dallas on Monday at approximately 10 a.m. CT aboard a charter flight to Baton Rouge, where there will be a welcome home gathering at the Maravich Center at approximately noon CT. Details on a national championship celebration to be held on the LSU campus will be published soon.

LSU (34-2) set the record for points in a Women’s Final Four game, as the Tigers shot 54.3 percent (38 of 70) from the field including 11-of-17 from three-point range. LSU outrebounded Iowa, 37-26. Iowa (31-7) made 50 percent of its field goals (28 of 56).

It was the unconscious shooting of LSU graduate transfer Jasmine Carson in the second quarter that ignited the Tiger’s offense. Carson, who had scored 11 points in the tournament but was without a basket since the second round, made her first seven shots from the field to score 22 points and spark the Tigers before halftime.

She led five Tigers in double figures, as LSU lit up the scoreboard while shooting better than 50 percent from the field throughout the contest. The Tigers, who topped the century mark in the first five games of the 2022-23 season, earned their sixth 100-point performance on the game’s biggest stage.

Sophomore forward Angel Reese, a Maryland transfer and the key piece to the Tiger’s historic season, went to the bench with a pair of fouls late in the first quarter. Senior guard Alexis Morris, who played for three Power 5 teams before transferring to LSU to play for Mulkey for the second time, also picked up a second foul with 6:36 left in the half.

In place of these two LSU stalwarts, Carson along with junior-college transfer guard Last-Tea Poa combined to make 6-of-6 three-pointers and extend LSU’s lead from four to 17 by halftime. Graduate transfer LaDazhia Williams scored in every quarter of the game, making 9-of-16 shots from the field for 20 points.

The LSU stars got theirs in the high-scoring affair, as Morris tallied 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting in 33 minutes. Reese set an NCAA single-season record with a 34th double-double in 2022-23, scoring 15 points with 10 rebounds in 29 minutes against the Hawkeyes.

Iowa junior guard Caitlin Clark, the 2023 Naismith National Player of the Year, led the Hawkeyes with 30 points, becoming the NCAA Tournament single-tournament leading scorer with 191 points.

Attendance was announced as 19,842 in the American Airlines Center.