Angel Reese has gone from being the biggest name in all of college basketball to mysteriously vanishing from LSU’s team.
The Tigers have played in eight games so far this year. Reese has missed half of them. She has not been seen on LSU’s bench since the first half of the squad’s 109-79 victory over Kent State on November 14.
Since then, she has been a ghost.
Last week, LSU coach Kim Mulkey finally offered an explanation regarding why Reese was out. After initially staying quiet, Reese took to social media this week to respond:
View this post on Instagram
It isn’t hard to read between the lines of that cryptic post. “Staying true to who you are” doesn’t leave a ton of room for interpretation.
Clearly Reese and Mulkey had a disagreement over something. Both have dug in. And until one party opts to budge, a resolution isn’t in the cards.
Over the offseason LSU went and recruited Hailey Van Lith. Although she primarily made headlines over the summer due to her provocative boat parties and wild photos, she is a very capable player who is picking up the slack in Reese’s absence.
Between Van Lith, Aneesah Morrow and Mikaylah Williams, the Tigers have enough firepower to withstand Reese being out for a while.
Whether the Tigers can without a National Championship again without their most talented star is a very different question.
Reese is a far different person this year than she was last. She is a huge celebrity and no longer needs to take Mulkey talking down to her in the way that she used to.
It is hard to go from partying it up with Olivia Dunne, publicly flirting with the biggest rapper in the game and being a brand name among NBA players to having your coach routinely put you in your place.
NBA Fan’s Kiss Cam Moment At Grizzlies Game Goes Viral (Video): https://t.co/jYReodICv9
— Game 7 (@game7__) November 28, 2023
That is just the nature of college athletics now.
Stars have a lot more power than money than they used to.
Will Reese and Mulkey ultimately be able to get on the same page at some point before LSU’s 2023 college basketball season concludes? Time will tell.
Related: Ryan Day’s 2 Potential Landing Spots After Ohio State Exit
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
