The LSU Tigers bowed out of the 2024 March Madness after a thrilling duel against the Iowa Hawkeyes that saw both squads push each other to the limits.
They had to watch from the sidelines as the South Carolina Gamecocks managed to do something they failed to execute: stem Caitlin Clark’s red-hot shooting to rob her of the national title she wanted.
While the Tigers and their legions of fans are still recovering from the bitter loss, pundits haven’t been as kind to them. One popular name in the sports media landscape took the Gamecocks’ impressive win as an opportunity to rub onto Kim Mulkey’s face where her team fell short.
Shannon Sharpe blasts LSU Tigers, Kim Mulkey for failing to contain Caitlin Clark
Shannon Sharpe took to the latest First Take episode on Monday to praise the Gamecocks and emphasize to Mulkey and her ladies their failure to stop Clark from doing whatever she wanted on the floor.
“You see the difference between what LSU did and what South Carolina did,” Sharpe explained. “South Carolina put their most athletic player on Caitlin Clark. What did LSU do? Put their least athletic player on Caitlin Clark. And you see the difference. They wore her down.”
It was hard to defend the Tigers against Unc when Clark’s stat line during that game proved him right. Clark played all 40 minutes of their game, scoring 41 points on a solid 44.8% from the field and 45% from three-point land.
Sharpe further emphasized just how big of a player Clark is in the women’s game:
“We’ve never seen a player in the women’s game bear more responsibility than Caitlin Clark. She has to score damn near all their points. And she has to facilitate,” the Hall of Famer continued.
“And you saw at the end, Raven Johnson was picking her pockets, something we did not see all year long. They wore her down, and as the game got going, she got more and more frustrated because she knew she didn’t have the horses running alongside her that South Carolina did.”
Fortunately for Mulkey and the rest of the LSU Tigers, they won’t have to worry about Clark terrorizing them next season as she’s about to make her jump to the pros.
However, taking down Clark in her final year would have cemented the Tigers as one of the greatest teams in the 2020s.
More must-reads: