LSU’s Mulkey takes exception with reporter, threatens legal action
LSU women’s coach coach Kim Mulkey lashed out at and threatened legal action against The Washington Post on Saturday, saying the paper has spent two years pursuing a “hit piece” about her and that it gave her a deadline to answer questions this past week while the defending national champion Tigers were preparing for the women’sNCAA tournament.
“The lengths he has gone to try to put a hit piece together,” Mulkey said of Post reporter Kent Babb, whom she did not mention by name. “After two years of trying to get me to sit with him for an interview, he contacts LSU on Tuesday as we were getting ready for the first-round game of this tournament with more than a dozen questions, demanding a response by Thursday, right before we’re scheduled to tip off. Are youkidding me?
“This was a ridiculous deadline that LSU and I could not possibly meet, and the reporter knew it,” Mulkey continued. “It was just an attempt to prevent me from commenting and an attempt to distract us from this tournament. It ain’tgoing to work, buddy.”
Chattanooga
In an extraordinary move, the NCAA changed one of the officials at the half of the Chattanooga-N.C. State women’s game Saturday because of a background conflict. Tommi Paris was the official in question. The NCAA wouldn’t say what the conflict was, but an online profile for Paris says that she receiveda master’s degree from Chattanooga. N.C. State won thegame, 64-45.
Alabama
The Crimson Tide’s 109-96 win against Charleston Friday might have seemed like a high-scoring affair. But at 205 points, the best it could do was tie for the 13th-highest scoring game in men’s tournament history. The record belongs to Loyola Marymount and Michigan, who in 1990 produced a game that had 264 points. Loyola — a team that averaged 122 points a game that season — defeated 149-115.
Iowa State
Lost in the 40-point effort by freshman Audi Crooks Friday was that the Cyclones women’s team needed pretty much every one of them. They trailed Maryland by 20 points before rallying for a 9386 win — the second-biggest comeback in women’s tournamenthistory.
Purdue
Zach Edey’s 30-point, 21-rebound double-double in the first round against Grambling was the first 30-20 double-double in tournament play since Maryland’s Joe Smithin 1995.
Elsewhere
There will be no perfect men’s brackets this year. James Madison’s upset of Wisconsin Friday night took out the last three unblemished sheets in ESPN’s bracket challenge. The CBS and ncaa.com contests were already down to zero clean sheets.