With a starting lineup filled with so many stars it comes to no surprise that LSU women’s basketball has started the season 15-1. The Tigers defeated Ole Miss 84-73 with Angel Reese leading the way with 21 points, nine rebounds and four assists. 

However, something that should go unnoticed is that every starter for LSU had 13 points or more.

The way one would look at this is in two ways. One way would be how dominant the Tigers starting lineup is and how unpredictable and difficult it is to stop the offense from scoring. You have Reese, Anneesah Morrow, Hailey Van Lith, Mikaylah Williams and Flau’jae Johnson.

If anyone has an off night someone else will be able to help them out. And the other way someone could see it, is that it’s a very starter heavy team and there isn’t a lot of bench depth in case starters get cold or they get into foul trouble.

Against Ole Miss, Morrow, Van Lith and Johnson, all very important players who impact both ends of the court, had four fouls. Last-Tear Poa comes  off the bench and brings that defensive presence, but she’s the only player on the bench to get consistent playing time. With the loss of Sa’myah Smith due to injury and Kateri Poole who is no longer on the team, this once very deep team has become rather slim.

There have been times where freshman Aalyah Del Rosario has started to get more and more playing time as a back up big. And during blowouts where other freshmen such as Janae Kent and Angelica Velez have gotten playing time and continue to rack up experience on the court but still have a long way to go. 

With the lack of depth this could cause trouble in the midst of conference play. There will be physical teams and players will get into foul trouble as they did against Ole Miss. 

In her postgame interview after Missouri, Kim Mulkey went into detail about the bench and playing time during the game.

“I need to give the bench more minutes, but in a game like this with some of the freshmen, some of those kids on that bench, I’m not sure if they were ready for that style of play.” She also hinted that there will be games where the bench will become more impactful. 

You look at last year’s team and even though they are in two different situations they had eight consistent players who were a part of the rotation and now you look at this year’s team and they have six maybe seven players in the rotation.

With still plenty of games remaining, it’s going to be interesting to see how the  bench will develop as the season goes on.