​The Texas Southern Tigers were on the wrong side of history on Thursday against the LSU Tigers.  (Elias Valverde II/Dallas Morning News)
The Texas Southern Tigers women’s basketball team was on the wrong side of history on Thursday night. The Tigers traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to face the No. 9 LSU Tigers. LSU won 131-22, the largest margin of victory in Division I women’s basketball history against a Division I opponent, according to ESPN.Kim Mulkey, LSU’s coach known for her unapologetic, flamboyant style, broke a record she set 10 years ago at Baylor. In 2016, Baylor beat Winthrop by 108 points in a decisive 140-32 blowout. The regrettable, history-making night also served as a homecoming for LSU alumna and WNBA superstar Angel Reese, who wore Chanel from head to toe, while Texas Southern served as mere background fodder for LSU’s de facto homecoming night for their beloved former superstar. Texas Southern was outscored 40-0 in the second quarter, with seven LSU players scoring 10 or more points. Texas Southern’s top scorer, Jayla Cornelius, tallied just 6 points in the loss. After the game, Reese and Mulkey joined their top stars at the press conference, and not one reporter even mentioned the record-setting night. It was like Texas Southern wasn’t even there. How much did Texas Southern receive to play LSUSo what did Texas Southern get out of the deal? Chron obtained the game contract from LSU, as Texas Southern received $25,000 for the contest.  According to an On3 report by Andy Kitty, which studied 384 “money games” from the 2022-23 regular season, the record for the school that received the guarantee payment was just 16-368, or a 4.1 winning percentage. For Texas Southern, LSU and college basketball at large, was any of this worth it? Beyond giving players at the bottom of each team’s roster some playing time, the game served as a scrimmage for two teams on opposite ends of the women’s college hoops spectrum. LSU is considered one of the best teams in the country, coming off a Sweet 16 appearance last season. Meanwhile, Texas Southern finished near the bottom of the SWAC standings last season. 
Vernette Skeete is in her sixth season as head coach of the Texas Southern Lady Tigers. (Carly Mackler/Getty Images)
LSU shouldn’t apologize for being so good, and Texas Southern shouldn’t apologize for being a program trying to find their way. But as they say in boxing, weight classes exist for a reason, and a lightweight has no business fighting a heavyweight. But for $25,000, was this worth the psychological impact for student-athletes (who are not likely receiving NIL) after a devastating loss? How does a program’s brand and image suffer from making such infamous headlines? Recruiting future players to Texas Southern just became that much more difficult after Thursday’s streamrolling by LSU. Requests for comment from Texas Southern athletic director Ashley Robinson to Chron went unresponded to as of Friday m