Questions Loom on LSU Basketball Star Angel Reese’s Unexplained Absence

With Angel Reese’s return to the court finally on the horizon, LSU’s women’s basketball team isn’t explaining why she was out for two weeks in the first place.

Reese last played on Nov. 14 when the Tigers faced Kent State. In that game, she played just 13 minutes.

Since then, there’s been a great deal of speculation online as to why Reese hasn’t been with the team. One of the most prominent rumors is that the 21-year-old had become academically ineligible and the team chose to sit her due to poor grades.

The university never confirmed it and head coach Kim Mulkey deflected whenever she was asked about it. Reese, while not explicitly denying the rumor, offered a cryptic message on Twitter.

“Please don’t believe everything you read,” she said.

please don’t believe everything you read.

— Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) November 19, 2023

On Wednesday, a noticeably cheerful Mulkey revealed Reese would return for Thursday night’s game against Virginia Tech.

“Angel is back and we are happy, happy happy,” Mulkey said during the press conference. “She’s happy, happy, happy. She’s available to play Thursday.”

Mulkey said Reese will “answer any question you have” when she finally addresses the media, but stayed quiet on why she’s been gone.

“I could give you the exact whatever you were looking for,” Mulkey said, “and there were still gonna be things written that you interpreted the way you wanted to interpret it.

“But there’s also what’s called the sacredness of a locker room. Have any of y’all ever been in a locker room as a student-athlete at the college level? Raise your hand. The sacredness of that locker room… We don’t let parents in that locker room. We don’t let people in that locker room. There is a sacredness to a locker room. And I’m from that school that what’s in that locker room, stays in that locker room unless it becomes something public that you can’t hide.”

Watch above via Twitter.