In a world gone nuts, a laugh, now and then, can temporarily deliver us from evil.
Kim Mulkey, the often repugnant, clown-outfitted, attention-starved, raging, sideline-stomping coach of LSU’s women’s basketball team, recently made low comedy when she threatened to sue the Washington Post for casting her in a poor light — a threat made entirely on what she anticipated reading.
Good guess, Coach!
What makes this comical is that whatever ill might have been written of Kim Mulkey, the primary source of the info is — ta-da! — Kim Mulkey.
One need only have watched her in action to conclude that she is a representative of the uglier side of college sports — not that “college” is any longer relevant — as it now includes, for better and worse, big-time, big-ticket women’s basketball.
Knowing as we do that all college coaches are limited to what they’re allowed to do — increasingly anything they wish in order to recruit academically deficient kids to produce many more wins than losses — Mulkey has been a dark-side overachiever.
At Baylor she specialized in remorselessly stomping opponents, humiliating them in the name of sports.
Here are a few of Baylor’s home game results vs. “Guests” — fish-in-a-barrel prey — at Mulkey’s direction from just the 2019-20 season: 149-32 over Lamar, 97-29 vs. New Hampshire, 120-64 vs. Grambling, 112-42 over Houston Baptist, 90-28 over Lamar and 114-43 vs. Arkansas State.
She’s a regular Attila The Hon.
Naturally, her great regard for her sport made her a must-have for LSU, which signed her to a $3.3 million per annum contract.
As for her “nothing intentional” explanation for LSU’s absence during the national anthem before the Iowa game, Monday, it didn’t rhyme with the truth. Her teams have often practiced rude disregard for the pregame anthem since Brittney Griner, now repatriated from a Russian prison, played for Mulkey at Baylor.
Regardless, she has already been inducted to the College Basketball Hall of Fame, taking her place alongside unsavory male coaches who were allowed by their colleges to win by hook but mostly crook.
As a disciplinarian, Mulkey seems as tantrum-prone as her players. In the win vs. UCLA prior to the Iowa game, star Angel Reese, a transfer from Maryland despite evidence of an inability to write a cogent sentence as a public reply to a question on Instagram, fouled out late, then headed off — but stopped to bad-mouth UCLA’s coach. Yep, in a close tournament game, she risked a technical.
At that point, ABC/ESPN pandering analyst — pandering has dominated all media’s women’s tournament coverage — Rebecca Lobo said that LSU’s taunting was a pregame concern. Gee, thanks. Why not say so, oh, an hour earlier?
And after the intemperate game, ABC/ESPN cameras abandoned the handshake line before viewers could see if the two coaches met.
Of course, given that the world has gone nuts, rationalized, wishful defenses of Mulkey and her young women have followed, everything from dangerous speculative claims of racism to a double standard for male coaches over women coaches, as if no one noticed Bobby Knight’s behavior. But this is the bag we’re in. Don’t believe what you see — over and over — believe what you’re told.
Yes, the women’s college game has ascended in skill and interest. But as with everything else, there are compromises to make, thus prices to pay.
Making sense of MLB, college hoops statistics
Stats? You want stats? “This Gen Stats”?
We’ll start with an honest one from, of all places, NCAA-partnered TV: Brian Anderson during the Clemson-Alabama men’s tournament game noted that Alabama has only one player from Alabama. That many, huh?
Next, how would you like to have been a Phillies fan with pricey tickets to the home opener to watch five Braves pitchers strike out 15 Phils? That’s 56 percent of the Philly’s outs!
Then there was Mariners 1-0 over the Red Sox, 27 total K’s in 8 ½ innings — 53 percent of the game’s outs vs. six pitchers!
We’ll make camp here, for the night: With 1:17 left in NC State-Marquette the teams still had five total timeouts left.
Reader Gary Seigel: “When ESPN posts late in MLB games that a team has a 92 percent chance of winning, why would anyone still watch?”
Quote of the Week’s runaway winner is Siena president Chuck Seifert on the hiring of Syracuse assistant and ex-SU player Gerry McNamara as its new basketball coach. Ready? Here goes:
“Gerry’s illustrious career and championship pedigree at Syracuse University, paired with his exceptional skills in mentoring young talent, align perfectly with the high expectations and storied tradition of Siena basketball.
“His appointment is not just about restoring championship success — a standard our fans rightly anticipate — but it also symbolizes Siena’s ascent in the broader collegiate landscape.”
Given that McNamara replaces Carmen Maciariello, a Siena alum who was fired after going 68-72, Seifert might’ve shortened McNamara’s welcome to, “Just win, baby.”
Gambling probes suspiciously go nowhere
Reader Alfred Angiola notes that Shohei Ohtani often bats right behind Mookie Betts (get it?). By the way, all these promised gambling investigations by MLB, Div. I colleges and the NBA of “irregular” line movements, suspicious results and an interpreter’s control of a $70 million player’s cash to lose $4.5 million to bookies, has thus far yielded the equally suspicious: Nothing.
No Joy In Mudville: Initially eager to watch the Yanks-Astros Fox season debut, Saturday, I’d forgotten that the telecast would be tethered to John Smoltz, who, right from the start, began his standard three-hour autopsies of every pitch. Yet, Fox, for the past 10 years, thinks we cherish his presence.
If Ryan Ruocco, throughout the LSU-Iowa women’s game, thought 12.3 million folks tuned to ABC/ESPN’s LSU-Iowa to hear him force a tortured signature call of every shot he was badly mistaken. Being genuinely good is to not have to try that hard.
Pity that an NCAA Tournament basketball analyst as strong as Dan Bonner must be buried behind the obligatory hysterics of annual partner Kevin Harlan.
Pete Alonso, at 29, is still pitching his crude “LFGM” identity. Isn’t there someone at MLB or the Mets to tell him it’s time to grow up, clean it up and cut it out. Feed that to the kids in your life, Pete, instead of continuously feeding it to those in ours.
To the spoilers go the spoils, continued: Draymond Green, among the very worst acts in NBA history, has appeared as the star of an AT&T TV commercial during the NCAA Tournament. Seems Rasputin was unavailable.
Some great news: After declaring last week that she has quit the music business, Lizzo has announced her comeback! Best thing to happen since Mike Francesa followed his long Farewell To Me Tour by unretiring.