2 weeks Ago
LSU head coach Kim Mulkey celebrates as her team heads to the bench after causing San Diego State to call the time out in the first period of the NCAA Tournament first round game on Saturday, March 22, 2025 at the PMAC in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Any women’s college basketball player who wished to enter the NCAA transfer portal had to do so by Wednesday night. LSU suffered its fair share of losses in this year’s cycle, but coach Kim Mulkey and her staff still have the bones of a championship-caliber team.
They can build a roster around the two stars they’re retaining (Flau’jae Johnson and Mikaylah Williams), the four freshmen they’re enrolling (Grace Knox, ZaKiyah Johnson, Divine Bourrage and Bella Hines), and the two transfers they’re already adding (Kate Koval and Amiya Joyner). How aggressive will LSU be in what’s left of the portal cycle? How heavily will it have to rely on its freshmen next season? Let’s examine the Tigers’ offseason to date, with a focus on all the talent they’ve lost and an eye toward the moves they still can make. Heavy turnover LSU knew it’d have to replace three players who were set to exhaust their eligibility: Aneesah Morrow, Shayeann Day-Wilson and Amani Bartlett.
It was unsure, however, of how many contributors it’d lose to the transfer portal. The final number wound up pushing Mulkey and her staff into relatively new territory. In all, they’ve lost five players to the portal, which means they must replace eight of the 13 players from last season’s team.
That’s three more openings than they had to fill last offseason and two more than they had to address the year prior. The Tigers haven’t experienced this much turnover since the 2022 offseason, when Mulkey overhauled her first LSU roster and signed the nucleus of the team that eventually won the 2023 national championship. Sa'Myah Smith, a former starter who’s transferring to Virginia, kicked off the movement when she entered the portal the day after the Tigers’ season ended.
Four others have followed her out the door. Last-Tear Poa is moving to Arizona State, Aalyah Del Rosario is enrolling at Vanderbilt and as of Wednesday, both Mjracle Sheppard and Jersey Wolfenbarger are still looking for new schools. Two big targets More portal additions are likely on the way.
LSU hosted former Wisconsin star Serah Williams on a visit last Thursday, and it’s also considered “the strong frontrunner” to land ex-South Carolina guard MiLaysia Fulwiley, according to a Wednesday report from On3 . Williams is a 6-foot-4 forward with 89 career starts, all-conference defensive honors and a scoring average of 19.2 points per game last season as a junior.
Landing her would give the Tigers a proven post presence who can score, defend and rebound, and she’s one of the 10 best transfers of the cycle, per ESPN rankings. UConn and North Carolina also are reportedly recruiting her hard. Fulwiley is ESPN’s fifth-ranked transfer.
She’s one of the most dynamic, athletic guards in the country, but she averaged only 11.7 ppg on 43% shooting across the first two seasons of her career. Her ceiling is much higher.
Could LSU find the right role for her and unlock her potential? LSU awaits Williams’ and Fulwiley’s final decisions. If they sign on, the Tigers will have one of the nation’s top transfer classes for the second time in three years. Other options LSU is running out of chances to catch big fish.
According to On3, roughly a third of the approximately 1,500 players who decided to transfer had found a destination by the time the portal closed Wednesday. That number includes most of the top prospects. Only five of the top-25 players in ESPN’s annual transfer rankings are still searching for a new home: Williams, Fulwiley, Utah’s Gianna Kneepkens, Vanderbilt’s Iyana Moore and St.
Joseph’s Laura Ziegler. If the Tigers miss out on one or both of Williams and Fulwiley, they’ll have a few open roster spots and not many high-profile players left to pursue..
