GREENVILLE, S.C - Coach Kim Mulkey said it again on Saturday: She isn't a huge fan of conference tournaments. For teams like hers, which have always earned top NCAA Tournament seeds, they carry too much risk and not enough reward.
The 2025 Southeastern Conference Tournament served up Mulkey a fresh reminder of that reality.
Early in the third quarter of the LSU women's basketball team's 56-49 semifinal loss to Texas, Aneesah Morrow suffered an injury scare when she fell awkwardly on a drive to the rim. After she was helped to her feet, she couldn't put any weight on her left leg, and she was then carried directly into the locker room.
But Morrow is OK, Mulkey said. All she did was reaggravate a mid-foot sprain, an injury that LSU does not expect will force her to miss any action in the NCAA Tournament. A relief for a team with national title aspirations.
"We have everybody," Mulkey said.
And that's the most important storyline that emerged from LSU's latest trip to the SEC Tournament.
The No. 3-seeded Tigers didn't reach the title game. But they did pick up a double-digit victory over the No. 11-seeded Gators, setting a program conference tournament scoring record in the process. They also fought through a tight semifinal loss to No. 2-seeded Texas, finding confidence that even a depleted version of themselves can still compete with the top teams in the country.
The Longhorns are the No. 1 team in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, and they have one of the 12 best scoring offenses in the nation. Yet they could score only 56 points on 32% shooting against LSU, a team that dealt with their fair share adversity throughout the tournament.
Flau'jae Johnson (shin) didn't play in either of LSU's games, and Mulkey spent time away from her team before its quarterfinal win over Florida while she grieved the loss of a loved one back in Louisiana.
Then Morrow injured her foot.
"I've won a bunch of conference tournaments," Mulkey said. "Everybody loves to win. Everybody loves to get a trophy. But at the end of the day, I've also been in those tournaments where I had injuries. Those kids couldn't go on and play in the most important tournament, the NCAA Tournament."
All indications are that this LSU team will not have that problem. All three of its stars can play in the Big Dance, and now, they may even team up with a reenergized group of role players to compete for a trip back to the Final Four, a journey that will begin inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Against Florida, LSU's bench chipped in 28 points -- the most it's scored since Feb. 9. Kailyn Gilbert added 10, and Mjracle Sheppard kicked in 12 to pair with two steals while starting for the first time this season.
The Tiger role players didn't provide as much scoring against Texas. But the defense they played in the second half after Morrow exited the action and Mikaylah Williams picked up her fourth foul made life tough on the Longhorns, who have now had two of their three worst shooting days of the season come in games against LSU.
Texas led 36-32 when Williams subbed out of the game at the 2:28 mark of the third quarter.
When she returned, the group of six players who saw the floor in her absence -- Sheppard, Gilbert, Last-Tear Poa, Jada Richard, Sa'Myah Smith and Jersey Wolfenbarger -- managed to shave a point off the Longhorns' lead, giving Williams a chance to reignite the Tigers' offense and drive LSU in front by the time she checked back in at the 6:42 mark of the fourth.
"They competed with the No. 1 team in the country today without Flau'Jae, without Morrow and (with) Mikaylah sitting a lot," Mulkey said. "I'll take that any day."
LSU, however, never quite figured out a way to find open shots - with or without Morrow and Williams. Since Mulkey took over the program, it's never scored fewer points in a game than it did on Saturday. The Tigers also missed eight free throws -- a recurrence of a problem that stood in the way of their hopes of upsetting the Longhorns in the regular season. That day, LSU clanked six freebies and lost 65-58.
But the Tigers' win over Florida, coupled with the fight they displayed in the loss to Texas, showed them what's possible.
In that game, Morrow scored 36 points -- more than any Tiger ever has in the SEC Tournament.
Now she'll have about two weeks to make sure her foot can handle the rigors of the NCAA Tournament, the postseason action that LSU was prioritizing all along, well before it took another eventful trip to the conference tournament and returned (mostly) unscathed.
"To me, it's too long," Mulkey said. "If you have conference tournaments, do we really need all 16 teams in the conference tournament? I don't know."