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Kim Mulkey's fourth LSU team is coming into focus as transfer portal window closes.While Hailey Van Lith visited schools, looking for a place to finish her collegiate career, the LSU women's basketball team searched quietly for a ballhandler who could replace her.

It settled on three: Miami’s Shayeann Day-Wilson, Arizona’s Kailyn Gilbert and Mississippi State’s Mjracle Sheppard.With those additions, coach Kim Mulkey and her staff replenished LSU’s guard depth. The Tigers now have a deeper, more versatile backcourt, replete with the ballhandling, defense and shooting they hope can help them compete with South Carolina and make a run at another national title.

The NCAA transfer portal window is closed. Teams can still sign transfers, but any player who wanted to enter her name into the portal had to do so by midnight Wednesday. Most of the top transfers already have chosen their new schools.So unless LSU adds another transfer, it’ll begin the 2024-25 season with 12 scholarship players — a blend of five newcomers and seven returners. In addition to the three transfer guards, LSU also signed Jersey Wolfenbarger, a transfer forward from Arkansas, and Jada Richard, a freshman guard from Lafayette Christian Academy.Missing from LSU’s group of additions is the star power it landed last offseason, when Mulkey reeled in not only the nation’s top two transfers in Van Lith and Aneesah Morrow but also its best freshman class, headlined by Mikaylah Williams and Aalyah Del Rosario, a pair of top-10 recruits.This cycle, LSU’s top transfer, Day-Wilson, is ranked 19th in ESPN’s latest transfer rankings. And its lone freshman signee, Richard, is a four-star prospect, slotted 90th in ESPN’s recruiting rankings.That doesn’t mean LSU lacks the top-end talent it needs to reach the Final Four. It’s set to bring back Morrow, Williams and Flau’jae Johnson, the rising junior who paced the Tigers in scoring across their four 2024 NCAA tournament games.

Next season, Mulkey no longer will be faced with the challenge of divvying up shots and touches for a star-laden starting lineup. Instead, her top priority will be finding the right complementary roles for the players she’s chosen to augment her nucleus of stars.The rotation won’t shake out until Mulkey chooses a point guard to replace Van Lith in the lineup she’ll trot out to start and close games. Four guards — Last-Tear Poa, Day-Wilson, Gilbert and Sheppard — are expected to compete for that role.

Poa has defensive chops and experience in Mulkey’s system.

Day-Wilson offers starting experience and shooting prowess. The rising senior started 71 games across three seasons, two at Duke and one at Miami. Last season, more than half of her field goal attempts were 3-pointers. She sank 37% of those looks.Gilbert is the best scorer of the bunch, but she has yet to prove she can fill a complementary offensive role. The rising junior averaged 15 points per game last season at Arizona, but her usage rate climbed to 31%, according to Her Hoop Stats, putting her in the 98th percentile of Division I players.

Sheppard is a pesky defender but a limited scorer. In her freshman season at Mississippi State, the 5-foot-10 guard averaged just five points per game in the 18 minutes she logged per contest. But she did tally at least five steals in four separate games, including the Bulldogs’ Jan. 29 win over LSU.LSU will need one to step into the role that Van Lith left behind, and the rest to contribute off the bench behind her, complementing the production that the Tigers will receive from Johnson, Morrow and Williams