When Gary Redus left LSU’s women’s basketball staff earlier this month to take the head coaching job at Rutgers, it left Kim Mulkey with a spot to fill on her bench.
And the four-time national championship winning coach didn’t have to look far for her next assistant, finding Redus’ successor in the SEC.
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LSU announced Tuesday, March 31, that it has hired former Tennessee assistant Gabe Lazo, bringing on a coach who is widely regarded as an ace recruiter and someone with a strong acumen for scouting and gameplanning.
“Gabe will be an outstanding addition to our staff,” Mulkey said in a statement. “He has been an invaluable member of two SEC staffs with an unbelievable ability to teach the game and recruit the best players in the country. Gabe will impact our program at the highest level, and his unmatched work ethic will lead to great results on the court and on the recruiting trail. It doesn’t matter if Gabe is out recruiting or coaching on the floor because the contributions he will make toward our program will be significant.”
Lazo joined Kim Caldwell’s staff in Tennessee for her inaugural season as head coach in 2024. Over the past two years, he played a significant role in recruiting some of the best high school prospects and transfer portal talents to the Lady Vols. All five of Tennessee’s freshmen this past season – including three McDonald’s All-Americans – credited Lazo as their lead recruiter. The group Lazo signed was Tennessee’s highest-ranked high school signing class since 2017. Oliviyah Edwards, tabbed as the second-best recruit in the country in the 2026 class by ESPN, has also said that Lazo is a big reason why she committed to Tennessee.
But Lazo resigned on Friday, March 27, after a turbulent season for the Lady Vols, which saw them end the season on an eight-game losing streak with a double-digit loss to NC State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
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Still, over the past nine years at five different programs, Lazo has helped five teams play in the postseason.
One of those squads was Mississippi State, where head coach Sam Purcell gave Lazo – then an assistant for the Bulldogs – much of the credit for preparing the team in their upset of No. 6 Creighton in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, making Mississippi State the first team to advance to the second round out of the First Four. Purcell added back then that Lazo’s “work ethic is unmatched” and he’s an “elite” player developer.
“He can relate to a lot of kids. And he has a passion and energy for life that sets him apart from other people,” Purcell told the Knoxville News Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network. “He’s just an absolute workhorse. He gets after it, and when you got those ingredients, it makes for a special person, and that’s why he’s doing a special job.”
Before joining Mississippi State, Lazo worked at George Washington, Stony Brook and FIU, going to three NCAA Tournaments. After playing at FIU and Division II Barry, Lazo worked as a head coach in the high school and AAU ranks around Miami, where he was a three-time high school coach of the year and led his AAU team to the Nike Nationals. He is also on the board for the Latino Association of Basketball Coaches.
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Three people familiar with LSU’s search for new assistants told USA TODAY Sports that Lazo and other candidates were interviewed last week. Mulkey is also filling a second assistant position after Daphne Mitchell left the Tigers to join Redus at Rutgers. As an assistant, Lazo had drawn interest from multiple Power 4 programs, including Ohio State, and was believed to have been a strong candidate for the head coach opening at UCF, given his experience and ties to Florida.
To replace Lazo, Tennessee announced Monday, March 30, it had hired Bill Ferrara away from Florida State. It’s possible that Caldwell will have another assistant to replace as Roman Tubner interviewed for the Kennesaw State job that ultimately went to former Chattanooga associate head coach Tianni Kelly.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kim Mulkey hires former Tennessee assistant Gabe Lazo to LSU staff
