Kim Mulkey had a little fun with her young center Thursday night, and the free throws made the joke easy.
LSU piled up a 119-54 exhibition win over Loyola-New Orleans, but the Tigers also missed 10 foul shots along the way. Lola Lampley was off on four, while Anna Minaeva bounced the other six off the rim. That drew a tongue-in-cheek jab from Mulkey.
"Anna, what's up with those free throws?" Mulkey said, tongue in cheek. "Is it conditioning?"
For Minaeva, the misses were part nerves, part rust. The 6-foot-5 center from Russia had been out of practice for two weeks with a quad injury, sat out LSU’s first exhibition game and then stepped into her first live college action for 17 minutes on Thursday.
"Just a little nervous," Minaeva replied.
The freshman’s first official taste of LSU basketball had both the promise and the growing pains Mulkey expected from a player who is talented, but still very young. Minaeva showed flashes against Loyola-New Orleans, yet also reminded everyone why Mulkey keeps stressing that this may take time for her to settle into a reliable role on a team with national-title ambitions.
Minaeva has already played professional basketball in Russia, but she won’t turn 18 until January.
"Here," Mulkey said, "she'd still be in high school."
So the bar is modest right now. Minaeva finished with 10 points, five rebounds, two fouls, a turnover and four made free throws on 10 attempts.
She had some clear positives. Her size created looks near the basket, and she got four shots around the rim, converting three. One of her best plays came when she sealed a defender deep in the post, caught the entry pass, spun right and banked in a left-handed layup.
She also drew five fouls in the exhibition. Still, the free throws never really came around, and the way Loyola-New Orleans shaded extra help toward her in the paint made it harder for LSU’s guards to feed her cleanly.
Even so, Minaeva managed a pair of offensive rebounds, kept her turnovers down and avoided piling up unnecessary fouls.
"I think she did fine," Mulkey said. "I think she gave us a presence in there to pass her the ball.
She's got really good hands. She really wanted to pass it one time on the break there, and that's when they all went crazy on the bench because she's an unbelievable passer for a big."
That moment came late in the fourth quarter after Minaeva picked off a Loyola ballhandler and tried to flip the ball to Mikaylah Williams on the break. The pass was deflected and went the wrong way, but it still offered a glimpse of why Mulkey calls her freshman "baby Jokic."
Like Nikola Jokic, the three-time NBA MVP with the Denver Nuggets, Minaeva is a center who can see the floor and create for others. Mulkey said Thursday that her version of Jokic is "extremely basketball smart" and that she likes to raise her hand in film sessions so she can ask questions.
"I like that," Mulkey said. "That tells you she's in tune to what's going on.
She's not tuning you out because there's a language barrier. She understands."
LSU may not have to wait long for more of Minaeva. The Tigers open Monday at 7 p.m. against Southeastern Louisiana, and their first seven games are all home matchups with mid-major opponents before they face their first power-conference team in the week of Thanksgiving.
They’re expected to handle all of those games comfortably, which should give Minaeva more time to work through the nerves that showed up with those missed free throws.
"You've gotta love an innocent answer," Mulkey said, smiling. "What do you say, you know? That's a 17-year-old response."
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