LSU head coach Kim Mulkey’s quip at a student journalist after the Tigers’ Elite Eight loss to No. 1 UCLA Sunday received criticism from fans. In an exchange with Jayden Smith of KSLU Sports — LSU’s student-run radio station — she responded with a question of her own: “How many Final Fours you play in?”
While some thought the clip was good-natured, with Mulkey receiving laughs from media members in attendance and winking at Smith, one high-profile media member had a lot of criticism for Mulkey. The media member in question? ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
Stephen A. Smith Calls LSU Head Coach Kim Mulkey ‘Rude, Condescending’
On Monday’s episode of First Take on ESPN, Smith got fired up at Mulkey, criticizing her treatment of media members.
Stephen A. Smith: “I’m not gonna take away from the fact that Kim Mulkey is a great coach and an established coach. We just need to finally say this about her: she’s very rude. She’s very very rude. She’s rude, she’s condescending and unnecessarily so to too many people.” pic.twitter.com/Qr0ngIdcC4
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 31, 2025
“I’m not gonna take away from the fact that Kim Mulkey is a great coach and an established coach,” Smith said. “We just need to finally say this about her: she’s very rude. She’s very rude. She’s very very rude. She’s rude, she’s condescending and unnecessarily so to too many people.
“But it’s always with the right ones. She don’t go up to the wrong ones like that. You see what I’m saying. It’s almost like she knows, Shannon [Sharpe], who to do that to and who not to do that to, because certain people you do not do that to, they gonna clap back at you.”
“But she is a phenomenal coach, one of the best ever. But she’s just a very very rude person.”
Sharpe had much to say on the topic of Mulkey on his Nightcap podcast with Chad Johnson.
“Has she not lost a game before?” Sharpe said. “I mean, Ocho, he didn’t even get a chance to finish the question. He’s asking, ‘Coach, this is the second time you’ve been eliminated.’ And for you to snap back and say, ‘Well, how many Final Fours have you been to?’ Really?”
“Kim Mulkey has been nasty for a very long time. And she’s gotten away with this type of behavior because she is a national champion-winning head coach. She has a history of doing this, the same thing with Bobby Knight.”
“Bobby Knight had a history of bad behavior, but because he was a national champion-winning head coach, you excused said behavior. Remember, people excuse behavior if you win, if they like you.”
KEEP READING: Shannon Sharpe Slams Kim Mulkey After LSU Coach Roasts Reporter in Postgame Press Conference
“Kim Mulkey has been nasty for an extremely long period of time. If this is unacceptable for an athlete to say, ‘Well, how many times have you caught a pass in the NFL?’ ‘How many times have you scored a basket in the NBA?’ ‘How many times have you struck somebody out?’ That would be unacceptable. This is unacceptable from Kim Mulkey.”
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