Angel Reese is setting the record straight as to why she took a two-week break during her final season on the LSU women’s basketball team.
The Chicago Sky rookie was mysteriously absent from play for two weeks in November, and a lack of explanation from both Reese and coach Kim Mulkey caused a swirl of speculation about why she wasn’t around.
No, she wasn’t pregnant and she didn’t have a failing GPA. She also wasn’t fighting with Mulkey, as the rumor mill suggested. Instead, Reese was taking a break for her mental health.
In a discussion on her podcast, Unapologetically Angel, with co-host Maya Reese, she explained the top-ranked Tigers, fresh off their NCAA championship win, had just lost their first game of the season to a lower-ranked Colorado team.
Reese said her team was not “supposed to lose to them” and the loss caused “a whole big uproar” on social media, with people accusing her of being unfocused on the season ahead.
Reese said the energy at practice and among her teammates was “pretty weird” after the loss and the two weeks off before their next game didn’t help.
At the next game, against Kent State, Reese didn’t play the second half.
She said during the game, she and Mulkey “kind of got into it about something … which is normal,” so Reese “respectfully” sat out the second half.
After the game, she and Mulkey decided it would be best for Reese to take some time off.
It was around this time, Reese said, that she was having a hard time balancing social media with the rest of her life, especially after she exploded online following the championship win the season before.
“I didn’t feel like I was in a good mental space for my for my own team, for myself, and just being able to give my best self,” Reese said.
“And I took time off … and it wasn’t because of everything else, it was me and Coach Mulkey being able to have that kind of relationship,” Reese said.
She said she opted not to go to the Cayman Islands Classic with her teammates in November. Instead, her mother came to visit for Thanksgiving dinner, giving Reese a chance for a “reset.”
“That was probably the hardest, like, time of my life, just because, like, I never took a break from basketball, and I didn’t realize mental health was, like, important, like, and I didn’t really realize that,” Reese said.
During her time off, Reese said she was in touch with her teammates and she cheered them on from home.
“When I came back, it was just, I felt like myself again,” Reese said.
Reese spoke highly of her relationship with Mulkey and said she appreciated that her coach did not tell the world where she was during her time off.
Outsiders “made assumptions about what was going on,” Reese said, but Mulkey “protected my brand.”
“And a lot of people didn’t think she protected me,” Reese said. “She protected me in the best the way she could, and I always will respect that from her.”
Reese said she felt her attitude was “contagious to other people” at the time.
“I wasn’t in a good place, like within myself, and I didn’t want that to become a cancer in the locker room,” Reese said.
“People don’t realize, like, you can really feel like you’re at the top and then feel like you kind of hit rock bottom,” she said. “It was just a time that I really needed. I think it really helped me in life.”
