Heading into the transfer portal in 2025, LSU women’s basketball head coach Kim Mulkey and her staff made a point of emphasizing one position group to recruit: the frontcourt. 

Mulkey has built her teams through the years by having a solid front court that can score inside, play defense and rebound. 

Players such as Brittney Griner, Lauren Cox, Aneesah Morrow, Angel Reese and Kalani Brown were staples of Mulkey’s career and played a pivotal role during national championship runs. 

This season, LSU brought in two players from the portal to help with the interior — Kate Koval from Notre Dame and Amiya Joyner from East Carolina.

Last season, the Tigers fell short in the Elite Eight, losing to UCLA 72-65 largely because they couldn’t match the size of the Bruins’ Lauren Betts. 

Betts stands at a staggering 6-foot-7, making her a mismatch for the majority of opposing defenses. LSU experienced it firsthand with Betts ending the game with 17 points, six blocks and seven rebounds, including four of them coming on the offensive end. 

The Tigers knew Betts would be a problem, especially given the way their team was constructed. 

Heading into that season, LSU returned Morrow, and while she plays bigger than her height, she was only 6-foot-1. Sa’Myah Smith started at center for most of that season, and while she stands at 6-foot-2, she was coming off a torn ACL from the previous year.

Between the size difference and Smith dealing with injury history, Betts won the physical battle and dominated in the paint on both ends. She was able to bully her way past Smith on offense and controlled everything in the paint. 

Morrow was LSU’s leading scorer and got most of her work done through the post and battled on the boards to earn second possessions for herself and her team, but with Betts, the paint was clogged, limiting Morrow to settling for jumpers. 

As a result, Morrow finished the game with 17 points and seven rebounds, but shot 7-for-19 (36.8%) from the field. Even on the first play of the game, Betts swatted Morrow’s shot out of bounds, showing what type of presence she was going to face for the next 40 minutes. 

When the two teams played each other the year before in the Sweet 16, Reese took on the assignment of guarding Betts and limited her on offense. 

She was strong enough to use her strength and hold her own against Betts one-on-one, and allowed double teams to help. 

On the other side, since Reese was so effective in the paint, Betts focused all of her attention on Reese, allowing LSU to get more looks inside. 

The Tigers scored 32 points in the paint and shot 46% from the field in the Sweet 16, compared to only 26 paint points and 37% from the field in the Elite Eight. 

Having reliable bigs is more than just limiting Betts and UCLA; it makes a Mulkey-coached team much more effective. 

As a freshman, Koval started her career with the Fighting Irish, averaging 5.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting 45.1% from the field. 

Now in her first season with the Tigers, she’s averaging 8.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks per game while shooting 56.3% from the field. 

Offensively, she doesn’t have to do much with scorers like Mikaylah Williams, Flau’jae Johnson and MiLaysia Fulwiley, but does a good job of sealing the defender to get post position down low. 

The most impactful part of her game, however, has been her defense. 

Being the team’s second leader in blocked shots and ranking No. 12 in the SEC, she’s solidified herself as one of the best defenders in the conference. It’s no wonder that she was considered a top-15 transfer portal player by ESPN’s Charlie Creme. 

“She takes over in the paint,” ZaKiyah Johnson said after the Alabama game. “You’re not getting around her. You’re not going to get the boards, and you’re definitely not going to get a shot off like she showed today. She was blocking everybody, and it just brings a lot of energy for her teammates as well.”

She shares the minutes with Joyner, who came over from East Carolina. In her three years with the Pirates, she was a top-two scorer on the team, averaging 12.8 points per game, including 15.0 points before transferring to LSU. 

While she doesn’t have the same size as Koval, she’s a threat offensively, averaging 9.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game while shooting 60% from the field with the Tigers. 

She does well going straight up and finishing around the rim while running the floor in transition for the easy basket. She’s relentless on the boards despite being only 6-foot-2, leading the team in offensive rebounds.

“She’s very strong, and I just think MyMy [Amiya], in one year, has been able to contribute, which is extremely hard to do in a program that is as talented as ours, but man, she is holding her own and doing fine,” Mulkey said after the game against Tennessee. 

In LSU’s second-round game against Texas Tech, both Koval and Joyner recorded double-doubles in the blowout victory, but got praise for doing the little things, such as helping with defense. 

“They were big,” Williams said. “They both had double-doubles, but the little things like helping on those ball screens and showing long enough and switching with a high hand on shooters, and they get a shot clock violation, those are the things that we talked about that get up over the hump on those big stages down the stretch in the late game.”

When talking about the front court and the forwards, it will be hard not to mention the two talented freshmen in Grace Knox and ZaKiyah Johnson. 

Johnson has been compared to Morrow with her tenacity on the boards and earning second-chance opportunities for her team. Averaging 10.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, she landed a spot on this year’s All-SEC Freshman Team. 

Knox was the highest recruit for Mulkey in this year’s class and has played like it so far, averaging 8.9 points and 4.6 rebounds, shooting 62.5% from the field. She is the team’s energizer who will send a shot to the stands and let you hear about it afterward. 

She plays hard on both ends, playing the passing lanes and blocking shots on defense, and will then sprint 94 feet to find position on offense. She’s very athletic and moves without the ball and makes herself open to her teammates. 

“There were three, four minutes left in the game, and I looked out there, and I had that freshman class, and I thought this is fun for me to watch, to watch those freshmen out there together,” Mulkey said.

With experience, size, athleticism and tenacity, LSU’s frontcourt is made to play a big role in a deep tournament run.