Shannon Sharpe has long called on the media to hold Kim Mulkey accountable.
Now, he’s making sure it happens himself.
LSU head coach didn’t take kindly to a question about her team’s season ending short of a trip to the Final Four.
After LSU’s 72-65 loss to UCLA in the Elite Eight, KLSU Sports’ Jayden Smith asked about the Tigers falling short of their championship run in 2023. Mulkey cut him off with a sarcastic, “That’s terrible, isn’t it?” before turning it back on the student reporter: “How many Final Fours have you been to?”
Predictably, that didn’t sit well with Sharpe.
“Really? Ocho, really?” he asked his Nightcap co-host, Chad Johnson, who took a more sympathetic stance toward Mulkey’s reaction.
“Listen, Unc, you got to be careful with the question and the way you word it, and the delivery and what you asking, especially after a game like that and being eliminated,” Johnson said. “Now, you know what they tell players after the game? ‘Take your time, and cool down. Come to your senses before you answer any questions.’ She just lost the game, so you have to understand why she was feeling the way she felt and why she answered the question the way she did.”
Sharpe wasn’t buying it.
“Has she not ever lost a game before?” Sharpe shot back. “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?”
Johnson thought the reporter’s wording might have triggered Mulkey’s response, but Sharpe wasn’t having it. He argued that Mulkey’s dismissiveness wasn’t a one-time thing — it was part of a long-standing pattern that had been overlooked because of her success.
“I don’t think so. I don’t believe so,” Sharpe said. “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 Championship-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 Championship-winning head coach, you excused said behavior. Remember, people excuse behavior if you win if they like you.
“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.”
And while Sharpe acknowledged the emotions of the moment, he didn’t see them as an excuse for Mulkey’s behavior.
“When emotion is high, logic is generally low — and we say things,” Sharpe says. “She probably doesn’t feel bad because, like I said, she’s a four-time National Championship-winning head coach. And she’s gotten away with saying things. She’s gotten away with treating people nasty. But, for me, I just expect more from a coach. That’s all … When you’ve been in this situation for an extended period of time, and you expect your players to behave in a certain manner after the game, I think the coach should set the precedent, should set the example, should lead by example.”
Coaches demand accountability from their players, and Sharpe believes it’s time Mulkey holds herself to the same standard. Dismissing a legitimate question with condescension isn’t toughness; it’s a pattern that’s gone unchecked for too long.
And if no one else is willing to call it out, Sharpe is more than happy to do it himself.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.