The immediate joy of LSU reaching the Final Four is giving way to the reality of playing in the semifinals against one of the hottest teams in the nation — Virginia Tech.
For the Tigers and Kim Mulkey, it’s an opponent with a back-to-the-future theme to it.
The Hokies are making their first Final Four appearance, but they're a No. 1 seed on a 15-game winning streak, second to only unbeaten South Carolina.
Mulkey remembers them when they weren’t so experienced. Her final Baylor team put a 90-48 whipping on Virginia Tech in the second round of the COVID-affected NCAA bubble tournament in 2021 in Texas. Even then, Mulkey saw the makings of a future troublemaker under coach Kenny Brooks.
“You saw talent; you saw raw talent that you just knew they were going to get better,” Mulkey said in Tuesday’s pre-Final Four virtual news conference. “I mean, Kenny was at James Madison and nobody ever wanted to play him because he was that good a coach and just really did wonderful things there, and then when he got to Virginia Tech, he was able to recruit a different athlete, a more — how do I say it? — just a more five-star, blue-star, whatever they want to call them, type of athletes that maybe he couldn't get at James Madison.
“You knew, ‘Wow,’ when he gets those kind of kids, what that program was about to do.”
Brooks has made Mulkey prophetic with one of the nation’s best twosomes in two-time ACC Player of the Year forward Elizabeth Kitley and lightning-quick point guard Georgia Amoore. Kitley, a 6-foot-6 post player, had 25 points and 12 rebounds in Monday night's 84-74 Elite Eight victory against Ohio State.
Amoore got up from an early game leg injury and added 24 points while shredding the Ohio State press with her speed and ballhandling.
Those players will be an interesting matchup against LSU’s own twosome of forward Angel Reese and point guard Alexis Morris. Like Reese, Kitley averages a double-double with 18.3 points and 10.7 rebounds, but she is also one of the nation’s premier shot blockers with 77, or 2.3 per game.
Amoore had a career-high 29 points in the Hokies' victory against Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen. She averages 16.3 points with 5.0 assists per game. Virginia Tech has two other players averaging double figures in scoring — forward Taylor Soule (11.1) and guard Kayana Traylor (10.8).
“Kitley is a problem with her height and her ability to shoot the face-up jumper,” Mulkey said. “She's not just a back-to-the-basket post player. Amoore — boy, she's got range and she's got just a deadly step-back move out there on the perimeter, and those two, I just remember playing them in the bubble and then watching them today and just how much better they are.
“They're older, and they've been together. (Brooks) hasn't had a lot of them transfer out. They don't play a lot of players, so they have that continuity together.”
Brooks is another factor. He’s gotten Virginia Tech in the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season and has built a 151-72 record in seven seasons. With the 11 years he spent at James Madison, he’s likely to chase down his 500th career victory next season, with a 482-189 overall mark.
Mulkey said she’s already talked to her Tigers about not living off the fumes of making the Final Four. Coming off the practice floor, she laid it out for her team.
“(I asked them), ‘Are we satisfied?’ Are we patting ourselves on the back and saying, ‘Hey, this is as far as we can go?’ Or are you still hungry?” she said. “And the responses that I received are, ‘Coach, we're ready to move on and get to the next game.’
“When you have kids that are hungry and not satisfied to just be there, you're going to go compete. Whether we win or lose, I know we will compete.”