Angel Reese was not in uniform or with the LSU women’s basketball team for the second consecutive game Monday night as the Tigers swamped Texas Southern 106-47.
"Angel is a part of this basketball team and Angel will be back sooner than later," said head coach Kim Mulkey. The coach refused to say if Reese has practiced or if she will make the upcoming trip to the Cayman Islands.
Reese missed last week’s game against SLU after being benched for the second half of a game earlier in the week against Kent State.
Adding more intrigue to the absences has been the lack of explanation from either Reese or Mulkey.
Mulkey didn't address Reese's situation in particular but she did talk about why she wasn't talking more about it as she talked to the media after the game.
"You always have to deal with locker room issues... that's part of coaching," she said. "In 40 years I can never think of a time where I didn't have to deal with issues... that's what coaches do. Sometimes you know about them and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you want to know more than you're entitled to know. I'm going to protect my players - always."
She then addressed a member of the media. "Let me ask you this. If you do some disciplining of your own children, do you think we're entitled to know that? That's a family in that locker room."
Both have just put out some cryptic messages. Mulkey, who doesn’t do social media, said after the benching in the Kent State game that it was a “coach’s decision,” not to play the star. She didn’t elaborate further.
After Friday night’s game, Mulkey only said that Reese was “still a member of the team” and that her return would hopefully be “sooner than later.” She said the media didn’t need to know anything further.
Reese has only Tweeted to “not believe everything you read,” over the weekend.
The absence of arguably women’s basketball’s most recognizable star has led to speculation over a suspension or grades or just a feud with the coach. Neither Reese nor Mulkey has gone further than saying she isn’t there.
The absence doesn’t appear to be injury-related, but the lack of an explanation has the rumor mill running wild.
Brett Martel, the AP sports writer in Louisiana, said Mulkey's reticence regarding Reese — one of the most popular and commercially successful athletes in all of women's college sports — has presented a public relations challenge for LSU and opened perhaps more room for speculation than LSU might have liked. Yet, from what little Mulkey has divulged — calling Reese's second-half benching against Kent State last Tuesday a “coach's decision” — it would not appear to be a compliance issue.