Four days after winning its first NCAA Championship, the LSU women’s basketball team began work on the future.
Coach Kim Mulkey has already signed the nation’s No. 1 incoming class for next season, but began looking beyond that with a commitment Thursday from one of the nation’s top Class of 2024 guards in Lafayette Christian Academy’s Jada Richard.
The 5-foot-8 Richard, who has already scored 2,021 career points, led LCA to three straight state championships and carries a 4.11 GPA, announced her decision to attend LSU on social media.
“This decision is not hard for me to make at all,” Richard said on her Twitter account. “The coaching staff, fans and players all made me feel at home.”
Richard, the top player in next year’s class in Louisiana, is the first player in the Class of ’24 to commit to LSU which won its first national title on Sunday with a 102-85 victory over Iowa.
“She’ll probably play point guard in college,” Lafayette Christian coach Errol Rogers said. “But she’ll be able to be a scoring point guard. She’s not a person who just likes to score. She’s a person that likes to play defense and pass the ball. Whatever Kim needs her to so, she’ll do it.”
She chose the Tigers over scholarship offers from Arizona State, Central Florida, Houston, Louisiana Tech, Ole Miss, SMU, UL-Lafayette, Tulane and Western Kentucky.
Her finalists were LSU, Ole Miss and SMU.
Richard was selected as the Most Outstanding Player in the Division II select state championship. She led the Lady Knights (29-1) to a 55-46 come-from-behind win over St. Louis Catholic with 32 points, six rebounds five steals and five assists.
Richard averaged 28 points this past season, 5/0 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 4.0 steals.
Richard, whose mother Cynthia played college basketball at Southern, is regarded as a prolific scorer and twice as a sophomore had 55 points against John Curtis and 52 against Southern Lab.
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