Tucked away along a wall in the LSU women’s basketball practice facility stands what may be LSU coach Nikki Caldwell’s most effective practice tool.
It won’t make players shoot better or run faster — not outwardly, at least — but it does give them a crucial nudge toward the best version of themselves.
It’s a roughly four-foot-tall, purple-framed mirror, but it provides the players with more than just a reflection.
“That’s the ‘gut check’ mirror,” said senior forward Courtney Jones. “The one we all hate.”
The mirror’s purpose goes something like this, “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Tell me, did I give it my all?”
The mirror’s name and the look on the players’ faces when they line up say everything about its effect.
At random times during practice, Caldwell blows her whistle for a 90-second drill she calls the “gut check” where players form a line in front of the mirror.
This is the part the players don’t look forward to. As they step up to the mirror, they must stare at themselves and assess their effort.
“When she stops and yells, ‘Gut check!’ your heart drops a little bit,” said senior forward LaSondra Barrett. “You have to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. … It holds you accountable.”
If they leave everything on the court, they give the mirror a thumbs-up. But if they feel they could’ve given more, the mirror gets the dreaded thumbs-down.
“It gets the attention of their teammates,” Caldwell said of the thumbs-down action. “Then their teammate is holding them accountable like, ‘Hey, let’s go. We’ve got to keep it up because coaches may blow the whistle for a gut check.'”
The negative self-assessment is a tough bite to swallow for some, evidenced by the pained looks on the players’ faces.
“I don’t want to say we hate it, but of course it’s a reflection of yourself,” Jones said. “If you feel like you can’t look in that mirror and honestly give yourself a thumbs-up, you need to re-evaluate yourself and ask, ‘Why am I not doing this?’ or, ‘Why am I having a bad day?'”
The tool seems to be doing the job for Caldwell’s staff. Her Lady Tigers team has recovered from a slow start to post a 13-4 record so far this season — just six wins away from matching last season’s win total.
“The mirror is the truth,” Barrett said. “You get to the point in practice where you look fatigued, you get a little weak in your mind and you slow down and stop and say, ‘I can’t go forward.’ Sometimes your mind tricks you.”
But the mirror was there from the beginning with Caldwell, who started using it when turning around UCLA’s program. After improving every season at UCLA, the mirror was destined for a new home in Baton Rouge.
It wasn’t hard to get the players to buy into the benefits of the mirror, Caldwell joked.
“Obviously women love to primp and look at themselves.”
 
Contact Luke Johnson at [email protected].