Mulkey has been a formidable foe for Auriemma, Huskies

It was John Conlee’s “Old School” that Baylor coach Kim Mulkey was singing during a postgame news conference at the XL Center in January 2020.

“Y’all heard that song?” Mulkey said. “Country music fans in here, raise your hands.”

Mulkey’s Bears had just roughed up UConn in the fourth quarter of a 74-58 victory, the most recent meeting between these teams in a series that resumes Monday at the Alamodome. She cut herself off — “All right, we’ve got to get on a plane” — but started singing again as she exited.

Geno Auriemma hasn’t faced many coaches and UConn hasn’t faced many opponents capable of consistently pushing back against the Huskies. Pat Summitt and Tennessee did it for stretches of that rivalry in 1995-2007. Muffet McGraw and Notre Dame did it in the 2010s. Mulkey and Baylor have done it in recent years, too.

Now with the NCAA Tournament’s River Walk Region down to one game, two brand-name programs and Hall of Fame coaches meet with a berth in the Final Four on the line.

UConn and Baylor have met eight times and the series is tied 4-4. There isn’t an abundantly rich history, just one NCAA Tournament meeting, but

this a fascinating situation nonetheless — for the stakes involved, the seasons each team has put together, and the wildly successful coaches on the sideline.

Mulkey, the point guard for a Louisiana Tech team that won the first women’s NCAA Tournament in 1982, played with a vigor that was easy to appreciate 40 years ago. With three national titles and a 632-103 record over 21 seasons, she coaches the way most great coaches do, pushing every vibrant aspect of her personality into everything her program does.

“I think Kim the coach is an extension of Kim the player,” Auriemma said. “She coaches exactly the way she played. She’s tough, she’s competitive, she’s driven, there’s an intensity level about her. She multitasks. She coaches, she officiates, she does everything on the sideline with a passion. And most of all, I think it’s been consistent. It’s been consistent that she’s been true to who she is. This is who Kim is. There’s no act there that she’s putting on.”

In Connecticut, we see Mulkey mostly from afar, two hours at a time on TV and occasionally in person. An assistant at her alma mater for 15 seasons before being hired at Baylor in 2000, she’s a Texas tornado of a coach who has risen in profile and power since the turn of the century.

“It’s intense, it’s competitive. You have to have heart, you have to have will, you have to have passion,” senior guard Moon Ursin said of playing for Mulkey. “There are going to be days where you’re going home and you’re like, ‘Oh, man,’ and you’re disappointed or upset or you’re angry. But you come back the next day better, and you learn from it.”

In 2018-19, the Bears defeated UConn 68-57 in Waco, Texas, ending the Huskies’ 55-game road winning streak, as well as their 126-game regular-season winning streak. Mulkey sang her way out of Hartford last year, and she enters Monday’s game singing the praises of UConn freshman Paige Bueckers.

“Being an old point guard myself, the first thing I noticed when I saw her play is she has unbelievable court vision,” Mulkey said. “She can deliver passes to her teammates that make it very easy for them to score. You don’t see much of that anymore. They work on their game and all they work on is one-on-one basketball and taking you off the dribble and stopping and popping and shooting the 3. … Her passing is just really, really phenomenal. She certainly can shoot and score the ball, but she seems to be a player that wants to be a leader and make everybody around her better.”