BATON ROUGE, La. -- Kim Mulkey got her first victory as coach of the LSU women's basketball team -- and also saw program history in the process, with senior guard Khayla Pointer recording the fourth triple-double by a Tigers player in an 82-40 win over Nicholls State on Tuesday.
"We're playing such a fast tempo, and Coach instills confidence in each and every one of us," said Pointer, who had 16 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists. "You can see we're out there having fun."
Mulkey, 59, spent 21 seasons as the head coach at Baylor, where she went 632-104 and led the Bears to three national championships, 12 Big 12 regular-season titles and 11 league tournament victories.
She left in April for the LSU job, in her home state of Louisiana. Mulkey won four state titles as a player at Hammond High School, about 50 miles from Baton Rouge. She then won two national championships as a player at Louisiana Tech and was an assistant coach there for 15 years before taking over at Baylor in 2000.
"We had a lot of north Louisiana, Louisiana Tech people that came. My family is here, and it's just wonderful that they can share it with me," Mulkey said. "If they were not supportive of me making the move, I wouldn't have made the move. But, of course, they were absolutely supportive."
Baton Rouge native Seimone Augustus, who led LSU to three straight Final Four appearances from 2004-06, was on hand at Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Tuesday for the Tigers' season opener.
"You can already see changes with just the excitement level for fans," said Augustus, who was the WNBA's No. 1 pick in 2006 and won four league titles with Minnesota before retiring as a player this year. "I'm happy to see how excited the players are, too. I think expectations are high, but we need to give them some time. But we know Coach Mulkey's résumé is proven. Her teams are always very tough, very organized in their approach to the game."
Augustus and LSU lost in the 2005 national semifinals to Mulkey's Baylor squad, which went on to win its first national championship. Baylor also won NCAA titles in 2012 and 2019.
Mulkey's hope is to bring an NCAA title in women's hoops to LSU. But for now, she said it's about making improvements every day.
"We have to defend the entire court the entire game, no matter what the score is," Mulkey said. "We have to get in that mode. We know what we face this year, and how talented the teams are, particularly in the SEC. We know we've got to do that to have a chance to beat some people we may not supposed [be able] to beat. Defense and rebounding will always be a staple in my program as long as I'm coaching."
Mulkey replaced Nikki Fargas, now president of the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces. LSU went 9-13 last season.