LSU Basketball Player Angel Reese Shares Her Thoughts on Coach Kim Mulkey’s Bold Game-Day Outfits

The Bayou Barbie makes her own fashion statement in the Swimsuit Issue this month.

Angel Reese was photographed by Yu Tsai in Los Angeles. Swimsuit by Indah. Necklace by Brinker + Eliza.

All eyes may be on star forward Angel Reese when she’s on the court during a LSU basketball game, but courtside, the attention is drawn to Tigers coach Kim Mulkey—and her statement-making and often eccentric outfits. Mulkey rocks bold colors, sequins, textures, animal prints or a combination of all of the above in her game-day fashion. She gets her eye-catching clothing from Baton Rouge–based stores like Rodeo Boutique and Queen of Sparkles.

“It’s a hit or miss. Sometimes it’s a hit; sometimes it’s a miss,” Reese says of her coach’s eye-catching looks. “When [Mulkey] walks in the locker room, it’s either like, ‘Yeah you’re slaying it,’ or it’s like, ‘eh.’”

But one thing’s for sure—once Mulkey puts on an outfit she likes, she’s not taking it off, no matter what the team thinks. Reese, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Final Four, recalls that her two favorite and most memorable Mulkey outfits were a shirt that read “Kiss Me, I’m a Queen” and an all-green St. Patrick’s Day number.

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As for Reese, who is featured in the 2023 SI Swimsuit Issue, the 21-year-old reveals she feels the most confident herself when she’s wearing a swimsuit.

“I probably feel the sexiest in a bathing suit, actually,” she says. “I just feel like, I’m 6'3", my body is nice, I work out a lot, so I mean, why not show it?”

The Baltimore native adds that Mulkey is supportive of everyone on the team and their pursuits outside of basketball. Reese’s recent rise to fame has afforded her a lot of brand deals and opportunities to travel that could potentially interfere with her team schedule.

“As long as we take care of our school stuff, [Mulkey] doesn’t care about the traveling and stuff like that,” Reese says. “As long as within [the] season [it] doesn’t become a distraction, she supports us. We have so many different kinds of personalities on our team. We have a rapper on our team [guard Flau'jae Johnson], we have me on the team. Everybody has their own little thing, so as long as when it’s time to play basketball and school is taken care of, she’s just super supportive of everything.”

Reese notes she’s especially proud of her team winning the first NCAA women’s basketball national championship in program history.

“All season we proved the doubters wrong,” she says. “We weren’t even supposed to be in the Final Four. Everyone told us our conference schedule was weak, [and] we weren’t supposed to be there. … To see everything that we’ve done within two years at LSU has just been amazing.”

Meet Angel Reese—read the 2023 SI Swimsuit model’s full feature profile here.