Kim Mulkey does not believe that Sunday’s brawl between LSU and South Carolina at the SEC Championship was that big of a deal. She believes that it is only getting as much media coverage as it is because it is women’s college basketball, and not men.
That is certainly up for debate!
Never before have we seen a player’s brother jump out of the stands, over the scorer’s table and onto the court in the middle of a bench-clearing incident. Never before have we seen a player’s brother escorted out of the arena in handcuffs and charged with assault in the third-degree for trying to stand up for his sister.
Mulkey also referred to what happened as a “shoving match.”
While the four-time national champion head coach is correct that punches were not thrown, one of the best players in college basketball was ejected for fighting. Her player, Flau’jae Johnson, was violently thrown to the court after hitting an opponent in the face with a forearm. Police were involved.
Kim Mulkey keeps bringing it up.
For Mulkey downplay what happened and say that “nobody got in a fight” is a rather unique perspective. Especially after she added fuel to the fire by calling out Kamilla Cardoso during her immediate postgame comments.
If that was not incendiary enough, Mulkey proceeded to put herself back in the spotlight that she wishes didn’t exist by claiming that a brawl in the men’s game would not receive the same amount of coverage.
There is an element to what she said that is true! A brawl rarely pulls this amount of interest. Coaches usually apologize for what happened, players may or may not be suspended, and the story passes.
Rarely do those incidents occur in the SEC Championship between the reigning national champions and the No. 1 team in the country. Rarely does a coach call out an opposing in postgame. Never (probably?) has a player’s brother spent a night in jail because of his role in something that happened on the court.
This is a pretty isolated incident that is worthy of interest. And it keeps coming back up because Mulkey keeps bringing it back up. If she had not discussed the fight on Tuesday night’s radio show, there would be no reason for something that happened on Sunday to be in the news on Wednesday.