Race and College Basketball. Yes, Again.

There are a lot of important stories out there right now—Tennessee making their case to surpass Florida as the leading national embarrassment, the bizarre threat by Wisconsin Republicans to impeach a newly elected Supreme Court Justice before she even takes office, the Donald Trump trial (Curmie sincerely hopes the case is stronger than it appears to be, or the damage will be significant), the “revelation” of what anyone paying attention has known for decades: that Clarence Thomas is devoid of any moral or ethical sensibility. And plenty more… 

Still, Curmie’s going to concentrate for a moment on college basketball and race. He’s already discussed that with respect to Big 12 coaches on the men’s side; let’s talk about the women’s NCAA tournament. We can begin with the commentary from South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. Her team had entered the NCAA tournament undefeated on the season, but lost in the national semi-final to Iowa, who won behind the heroics of their star guard Caitlin Clark, who registered 41 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 assists. 

But there was a lot of commentary about South Carolina’s style of play. Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said prior to their game with the Gamecocks that going for a rebound against them was “like going to a bar fight.” Earlier in the season, Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma described what he perceived as the Gamecocks’ overly physical style and declared himself “sick of it.”

What’s this got to do with race? Well, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley is black; so are most of her players. Indeed, the only two white players on the team totaled a mere 222 minutes for the entire season; that’s less than 3% of the team total. Bluder and the majority of her team, including their star, Clark, are white. 

Auriemma is also white; whereas his team is roughly evenly divided between white and black athletes, most of his complaints about South Carolina were about what he regarded as numerous missed calls involving Huskies forward Lou Lopez Sénéchal, who is Latina and appears white. (It should be noted here that Auriemma’s commentary was generalized to how teams, plural, played Lopez Sénéchal and how referees allowed them to do so; South Carolina was just the most recent example.) 

So, is race a factor? Well, as Curmie was fond of saying when he taught Asian theatre, yes and no. Staley’s defense of her coaching strategy seems to suggest a racial element to the criticism of her team’s physicality, saying among other things that “We're not thugs. We're not monkeys.” This is not only a straw man argument, it’s a craven one, implying without actually saying that her and her team’s critics are engaging in racial stereotypes. No one, at least no opposing coach or player, and no sports commentator of any stature has ever used those terms, at least in public. Over-reaction, then? At the very least. 

Ah, but Gentle Reader, we’re not done. Multiple LSU players accused Clark of “disrespect” when the Iowa star waved off South Carolina guard Raven Johnson rather than run out to guard her late in the first quarter of the national semi-final. That’s just game plan: South Carolina lives and dies in their interior game; it’s perfectly reasonable to leave a 24% three-point shooter open in order to sag inside to make it harder to feed the post. There’s one easy way for Johnson to put an end to that tactic, of course: shoot the wide open three-pointer and make it.

Caitlin Clark-- we can’t see her

Significantly, the media lapped up Clark’s brashness. Cory Woodroof of For the Win, for example, raved about Clark’s “absolutely hilarious disrespect.” Media types also thought Clark’s derision of Hailey Van Lith when the Iowa-Louisville Elite 8 game was clearly going to go the Hawkeyes’ way was absolutely peachy. She got special props for the waving the hand in front of the face gesture. Curmie is told that this frankly stupid-looking display is intended to mean “you can’t see me”; the originator of this taunt was the pseudo-wrestler/pseudo-actor Jon Cena. Cena himself joined in the celebration of Clark, exclaiming on Twitter, “Even if they could see you…they couldn’t guard you!”. 

Ah, but here is where the fun really begins. When LSU defeated Iowa in the national title game, LSU star Angel Reese, who is black, pointed to her ring finger, suggesting that she was about to get a championship ring. I mean… Curmie hadn’t seen that gesture in, hell, a few weeks, when Kansas forward Jalen Wilson made a similar gesture to celebrate clinching the Big 12 men’s regular season championship. (Curmie is certain there are other, even more recent, examples; this was one Curmie, as a Jayhawks fan, saw live on TV.) 

Angel Reese, echoing the sentiment

Not only that, she used precisely the same gesture to Clark that the Iowa star had used in the Louisville game. OMG, the unmitigated gall! Oh, the humanity! Think of the children! Keith Olbermann, for example, declared Reese a “fucking idiot”; five minutes later he added “Mindless, classless, and what kind of coach does this team have?” 

To be fair (sort of), Olbermann apologized (sort of) the next day, with the rather feeble excuse that he doesn’t follow hoops (yeah, right, the guy who spent two decades as a sports journalist and hosted SportsCenter for five years doesn’t follow hoops), so he didn’t know the backstory. As if the backstory really mattered. 

Olbermann, of course, took a lot of heat for his initial response, including from the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal, neither of whom were particularly kind in their criticism. Olbermann wasn’t alone in his hypocrisy, of course, but as the most famous of her detractors, he certainly works as an exemplar of the phenomenon. Curmie cringes at the thought of agreeing with a blowhard like Stephen A. Smith, but he was right in tweeting that “When Caitlin Clark did it...people were celebrating it and talking about nothing but her greatness. BUT the SECOND a sister stepped up and threw it back in her face, everyone is mad. Come on!”  

Reese herself was, to say the least, unapologetic, and certainly didn’t shy away from the racial dimension: “All year, I was critiqued about who I was…. I don’t fit in the box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood, I’m too ghetto. You told me that all year. But when other people do it, y’all don't say nothing. So this is for the girls that look like me, that want to speak up on what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you…. It was bigger than me tonight.” Of course, 16 of the previous 17 tournament Most Outstanding Players in the tournament were black, so Reese wasn’t exactly breaking new ground. 

Clark, to her credit, downplayed the entire incident, claiming she didn’t see Reese’s gestures, an unlikely proposition… but maybe Reese actually became invisible with the “you can’t see me” gesture? More importantly, she defended Reese: “I don't think Angel should be criticized at all. No matter which way it goes, she should never be criticized for what she did. I'm just one that competes — and she competed…. LSU deserved it; they played so well, and like I said, I’m a big fan of hers.” 

Irrespective of the factors leading to his perspective (age? class? race? something else altogether?), Curmie has never been a fan of trash talk, but accepts it as a fact of life in today’s sporting world. One supposes there are unspoken boundaries, but exactly where they are is difficult to determine. But those limitations, whatever and wherever they are, need to be the same across the board: age, gender, race, etc. cannot be a factor. And, of course, the racial (and perhaps gender-based) overtones to all this are impossible to ignore. But, as they say on the late-night infomercials, Wait! That’s not all! 

First Lady Jill Biden was at the game, and apparently enjoyed it. After the contest, she uttered remarks that were no doubt well-intentioned but rather stupid: “I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do. So, we hope LSU will come. But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.” 

The suggestion that any losing team ought to be able to share the spotlight with the winners not only goes against tradition, it’s just dumb. But the implication that inviting LSU is more a matter of custom rather than appropriateness, coupled with the race of the majority of the players on those teams… well, the optics are less than optimal. 

Iowa’s Clark and Bluder both, by the way, said that the White House visit ought to be reserved for LSU. Biden’s minions were quick to “clarify” Dr. Biden’s remarks, but the inevitable damage was done. 

Reese promptly tweeted “A JOKE,” and rejected the (inevitable) apology. Her teammate Alexis Morris tried to wangle an invite from Michelle Obama instead (yeah, like that’s going to happen), and Reese proclaimed that the team was not going to visit the White House, but that “we’ll go to the Obamas. We’ll see Michelle. We’ll see Barack.” 

To be fair, she said that last part apparently in jest. The part that seemed to be serious, though, was that LSU would not accept the White House invitation. Apparently Reese believes she sets policy for the team, now. Curiously enough, the LSU athletics department had other ideas. Go figure. 

Jill Biden, by the way, was apparently to visit both locker rooms before the championship game, but LSU didn’t want her, for the oh-so-very-mature reason that Joe (not Jill) had not included them on his bracket. Sigh. 

OK. So who looks good in all this? If we forgive the trash talk and the narcissistic showmanship, Clark looks pretty good. The same could be said for Reese. On the other hand, she blew everything out of proportion by acting like a pampered 12-year-old. Olbermann should indeed shut up. Jill Biden should apologize in person rather than have her press secretary issue a walk-back. The tournament featured record-breaking performances, shattered attendance records, and some really good basketball. It kinda sucks that it will be remembered primarily for other things. 

Oh, and just because nobody else has mentioned this: much has been made of the black and gold tiger-striped outfit LSU coach Kim Mulkey wore to the final. No one seems to notice that black and gold are Iowa’s colors—Curmie isn’t sure what the visual equivalent of tone-deaf is, but this was it. Sigh.