“She’s just been really good in practice.” Fans surprised Angel Reese amidst her breakup.

LSU star forward Angel Reese, who has missed four games for undisclosed reasons, is rejoining the No. 7 Tigers in advance of their matchup with ninth-ranked Virginia Tech on Thursday night.

“She will play tomorrow,” LSU coach Kim Mulkey said Wednesday. “It’s a boost having her back, period. It’s not just against Virginia Tech. It’s just for our team. She’s just a tremendous player, one of the best players in the country.

“I really think Angel will just be like Angel,” Mulkey added. “She’s just been really good in practice.”
Reese had foreshadowed her return when she posted on social media a photo of herself inside LSU’s basketball stadium, the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

The timing of Reese’s return is convenient for defending national champion LSU — and not just because its next game is a rematch of last season’s national semifinal. Two games ago against Niagara in the Cayman Islands Tournament, LSU power forward Sa’Maya Smith went down with a knee injury. On Wednesday, Mulkey said Smith is out for the season with ligament and meniscus tears in her right knee.

“Timing is everything in life and the timing of her injury is just so sad for her because she has improved by leaps and bounds,” Mulkey said. “The timing of Angel being back kind of helps, but there’s no substitution for the value that Sa’Maya has to our team and what she’s meant thus far.”

Mulkey has declined to go into detail about why Reese was not with the team for much of the past two weeks beyond saying it stemmed from unspecified “locker-room issues.”