Iowa vs. LSU live updates and where to watch: Game time, channel, predictions, Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark stats, odds of March Madness Elite 8

ALBANY, NY — There was joy, because of course there is when a team survives and advances in March. Flau’jae Johnson, who scored 24 points and wanted LSU to pass UCLA, bounded over toward the Tigers’ family and friends in the stands with a big, bright smile.

But about 15 minutes later, Johnson’s guard was back up as she sat next to Angel Reese and Aneesah Morrow during a postgame news conference. So was Reese’s. Morrow’s, too. Yes, the Tigers were happy to be moving on to the Elite Eight. But they know exactly how the world sees them, and they don’t always appreciate it.

“We’re the good villains,” Reese said. “Everybody wants to beat LSU. Everybody wants to be LSU. Everybody wants to play against LSU. You’ve got to realize, like, we’re not any regular basketball team. Coach (Kim Mulkey) talks about it all the time; she calls us ‘The Beatles.’ People run after our bus. People are coming to our games. You’re seeing sellouts, you’re seeing people buying jerseys, you’re seeing more sellouts than the men.

“We’re impacting the game so much, and all of us are super competitive and want to win and do whatever it takes to win. We’re just changing the game.”

Reese noted that she gets criticized for her modeling, which she likes in addition to basketball. “I can do both,” she said. Johnson regularly gets asked about her second career as a rapper. “Flau’jae can do both.”

“We can all do both,” Reese continued. “That’s what people don’t believe. They don’t think that we’re focused, and we prove every single night when we get between those lines, we’re focused. That’s what we’re worried about.”

“Just being able to have teammates that have my back, have teammates, have coaches just have each other’s back this whole time. I don’t care what the outside (world) thinks,” Reese said. “I know what’s going on in that locker room.”

Before the season and at points during it, many outside the program wondered how it would work — adding Hailey Van Lith from Louisville and Morrow from DePaul — with only one basketball to share. And with a coach who is not afraid to say what she wants about all of it (and not afraid to bench a star, either).

“People always tell us how we should act, how we should dress, how we should talk,” Johnson said. “But there’s never been people who have done this before.”

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