GREENVILLE, S.C. — It wasn’t the primary time and it most likely gained’t be the final, however on Friday evening, Bob Starkey stood in as the pinnacle coach of LSU’s ladies’s basketball crew and coached the Tigers to a win over Florida within the quarterfinals of the SEC Match.
LSU head coach Kim Mulkey was there, however for many of the evening she sat quietly in the midst of the bench whereas it was Starkey who spent nearly all of the night on his toes, calling out performs, assignments and tips that could gamers.
Mulkey was away from the crew for many of the week, grieving and coping with what she referred to as an “sudden dying” in her household. Mulkey didn’t arrive to the SEC Match till Friday and left the duties of making ready the crew to Starkey.
However she knew the Tigers had been in good fingers. With Starkey in cost, she didn’t have to fret about her basketball crew in a tumultuous time.
“He had our crew able to play. They responded to him,” Mulkey mentioned. “My week was terrible. My thoughts nonetheless isn’t good… I used to be the place I used to be presupposed to be.”
In LSU’s locker room within the bowels of Bon Secours Wellness Area, the Tigers soaked Starkey with water in celebration of the the postseason win that the 65-year-old guided them to. However Starkey, ever humble, deflected the credit score.
“This was a Coach Mulkey win,” Starkey mentioned. “I simply obtained to face up a bit of bit greater than I often do.”
Sitting subsequent to him on a stage within the postgame press convention, Mulkey showered Starkey with reward. She went a number of steps additional than typical compliments, strongly advocating for him to be enshrined.
“This man deserves to be within the Ladies’s Basketball Corridor of Fame,” Mulkey started. “I’ve been begging ‘em for years. We’ve got two affiliate head coaches which might be within the Ladies’s Basketball Corridor of Fame, however not both of them ever took a crew on an interim foundation to a Ultimate 4. This man has accomplished that. He’s labored for Sue Gunter, he’s labored for (Van) Chancellor, he’s labored for tons of coaches.
“For me to go maintain one thing private for a whole week… A number of coaches aren’t blessed to have a employees with a Bob Starkey on it. Why he’s not already within the Corridor of Fame is past me.”
“It is the sudden deaths that throw you for a loop & I used to be the place I used to be presupposed to be.” -Kim Mulkey
Coach Mulkey very happy along with her crew’s efficiency vs Florida, regardless of being away from them for every week. Bob Starkey stepped in as HC & had LSU able to go.@LSUwbkb… pic.twitter.com/NhyS4YsOnD
— Chessa Bouche (@chessabouche) March 8, 2025
Mulkey isn’t flawed right here. One may make the case that no assistant coach has had a profession as embellished as Starkey’s.
A local of Charleston, West Virginia, Starkey arrived at LSU in 1990 and commenced working as assistant coach on Dale Brown’s employees and obtained to teach Shaquille O’Neal. The LSU males gained an SEC title and twice went to the second spherical of the NCAA Match with Starkey on the bench.
Then he moved over to ladies’s basketball, the place he has coached for practically three a long time. In its historical past as a ladies’s basketball program, LSU has been to 6 Ultimate Fours and Starkey was a part of each considered one of them. The Tigers have gone to NCAA Tournaments in 15 of the 16 years that Starkey has been on the Tigers’ employees underneath numerous head coaches. He was additionally on employees for all three of their SEC common season titles. And Starkey additionally coached the three best gamers to ever come by means of LSU: Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles and Angel Reese.
Starkey additionally left LSU for a bit and had success elsewhere. Working underneath Gary Blair at Texas A&M, Starkey helped the Aggies go to eight NCAA Tournaments and win an SEC common season title.
However circling again to the a part of Starkey’s resume that Mulkey centered on, what he did in 2007 stays wildly spectacular. When then-head coach Pokey Chatman resigned simply days earlier than March Insanity started, Starkey took the reins of this system and guided the Tigers to a fourth consecutive Ultimate 4 berth. Throughout that NCAA Match run, Starkey’s LSU groups beat Mike Carey’s West Virginia, Sue Semrau’s Florida State and Geno Auriemma’s UConn earlier than falling to C. Vivian Stringer’s Rutgers.
Starkey mentioned on the time that he didn’t wish to turn out to be LSU’s head coach and as an alternative remained on-staff when Van Chancellor obtained the job.
The Division I ladies’s school basketball groups that Starkey has been on employees for have a mixed general document of 663-235, a profitable share of 73.8.
When Starkey’s profession is taken into account in whole — if you have a look at the banners he’s helped elevate, the groups he’s coached to NCAA Tournaments and past, the good coaches that reaped the advantages of getting him on employees, and the legendary gamers he recruited and molded — it’s troublesome to argue with Mulkey. It’s uncommon for assistant coaches to be admitted to halls of fame, but when anybody has a resume worthy of entry, it’s Starkey.
And if Starkey is enshrined some day, there may not be a coach within the Ladies’s Basketball Corridor of Fame extra modest than him.
“I’ve been blessed on these few occasions the place I needed to take over to have a very, actually good crew,” Starkey mentioned. “The higher the gamers, the higher the coach. Coach Mulkey has given me the blueprint.”