As of last Thursday, coach Kim Mulkey was still waiting for that first practice. The one in which she gets "upset" at her LSU women's basketball team.

The chances of it happening this week are slim. The No. 9 Tigers (1-0) didn't just win their season opener on Monday, they cruised to a 94-point victory over Southeastern Louisiana that went into the record book as the most lopsided win in program history.

LSU was similarly dominant in its two exhibition contests, but this game was the first one that counted.

Did Mulkey see anything she hadn't seen before?

"I got to see everything I see each day," she said.

Now there's a good chance Mulkey and her staff get to watch more of it at 7 p.m. Thursday when LSU hosts Texas Southern (SEC Network+) in another opportunity to fine-tune what already looks like a well-oiled machine. Angel Reese plans to attend the game, and when the Tigers honor her at halftime, history shows they'll already have a sizable lead.

Starters Jada Williams, MiLaysia Fulwiley, Mikaylah Williams, ZaKiyah Johnson and Grace Knox outscored the Lions 53-11 in the 17 minutes they spent on the floor together Monday. They teamed up to force 11 turnovers, grab 20 rebounds and assist on 12 made field goals.

The group played suffocating defense. Southeastern had as many turnovers (22) as it had field goal attempts at halftime, and it didn't even make its first shot of the night until the 4:16 mark of the first quarter.

LSU always dominates these early-season nonconference games against mid-major teams. The Tigers are 69-2 in November and December under Mulkey, and they haven't dropped one of those matchups since they lost to Colorado to begin the 2023-24 season.

But what they did to the Lions on Monday, with only nine active players, was impressive nonetheless.

LSU scored 129 points on 56% shooting and hit 10 3-pointers. Last season's team never put up that many points in any of its games, even though it finished the year with the highest scoring average in SEC history (95 points per game) and an NCAA record for 100-point outings (16).

This LSU team looks like it can post similarly eye-popping numbers, at least until its schedule gets tougher around Thanksgiving. What's dangerous about the group is that it has something that it can use to unlock an even scarier version of a typical Mulkey-coached team.

"Versatility," Johnson said. "We're not as big as we normally are, so it forces us to have to run. We have to run fast."

That's not welcome news for Texas Southern, a mid-major program that was picked to finish 10th in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The Tigers from Houston finished the 2025-26 season 10-21, and they left their last visit to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in 2023 with a 106-47 loss.

Mulkey said Monday that she thought her LSU team could have defended Southeastern better in the second half. The Lions shot 7 of 14 from the field across the third and fourth quarters, and they found a way to rattle off seven points in the last two minutes of the game.

"We just don't pat ourselves on the back in games like this," Mulkey said. "We just go to work and get back in the film room."

Then they hit the floor and practice, without giving Mulkey many things to worry about.