During March Madness, we witnessed incredible individual and team performances all the way through the championship game.
The nation marveled over the greatness of Caitlin Clark while also celebrating LSU’s first NCAA basketball title.
Yet in that title game, the hypocrisy and racism that live in sports were exposed through a part of the game that has always existed.
Talking junk.
Every competitor talks smack in their own way. It’s part of the game and if you’re prepared to back it up or suffer the consequences, then it’s basically all good.
In the Elite Eight and Final Four, Clark did just that.
Against Louisville, she hit the Cardinals with John Cena’s “You can’t see me” expression. Against South Carolina, she disrespected the Gamecocks’ backcourt by flicking her hand in dismissal of their shooting ability.
But most impressively, she backed it up and neither team had an answer for college basketball’s star player.
She dropped a 41-point triple-double on Louisville (41, 12 assists, 10 rebounds) and almost duplicated it with a 41, 8 and 6 performance on the Gamecocks in the Final Four.
For that, she had every right to talk smack. She more than backed up her antics, and that’s perfectly fine. It comes with the territory and no one criticized her, which was fine too.
Yet on Sunday afternoon, the tables were turned for this time the smack talk was done by LSU’s Angel Reese and she unleashed it directly at Caitlin Clark.
And that’s when the swords, unsurprisingly, were unsheathed.
“Absolutely classless move by Reese.”
“Awful sportsmanship.”
“What a classless move by Angel Reese. Doing WAY too much to taunt Clark,” tweeted ESPN’s Danny Kanell.
And then there was Keith Olbermann.
“What a fu**ing idiot,” he tweeted Sunday night. “Doesn’t matter the gender, the sport, the background – you’re seconds away from a championship and you do something like this and overshadow all the good. Mindless, classless, and what kind of coach does this team have?”
(To be fair, Olbermann did issue an apology this morning, stating “I apologize for being uninformed last night about the back story on this. I don’t follow hoops, college or pro, men or women. I had no idea about Clark. Both were wrong.”)
As a journalist, Olbermann should have known better.
But regardless. The hypocritical, racist venom that is always present and simmering in sports boiled over last night.
Olbermann, Kanell and the other critics who bashed Reese failed to bash Clark last weekend, putting their hypocrisy on front street for all to see.
But again, it’s nothing we haven’t witnessed before.
We saw it when Aaron Rodgers did his State Farm Discount Double Check celebration. We saw it again when Rodgers celebrated with a Key and Peele “Hingle McCringleberry” double pump celebration. In both cases, they were laughed off as harmless fun.
But when Cam Newton celebrated, he was vilified.
When Vonn Miller did the “Hingle McCringleberry,” he was fined.
There always seems to be a hypocritical rule that allows white people to celebrate, even when it causes damage. In those cases, the behavior is excused through dismissive words and descriptions.
Yet that same hypocrisy punishes Black celebrations through coded language and venomous attacks. That hypocrisy was on display again in Dallas at the women’s championship game.
To be clear, neither Clark nor Reese did anything wrong or malicious. We all know this is part of the game, regardless of gender.
But the ugliness of the aftermath, and not the antics themselves, that ruins the game. Especially when its uninformed rhetoric.
The funniest part is that none of the Iowa players, including Clark, said anything about it. And you know why? Because it wasn’t racist or demeaning. It was simply part of the game and the Hawkeyes had to accept it as they lost.
Angel even explained why she did it when she didn’t need to.
“Caitlin Clark is a hell of a player for sure,” exclaimed Reese. “But I don’t take disrespect lightly and she disrespected Alexis [Morris] and my girls [South Carolina]. They still my SEC girls too and y’all not going to disrespect them either.”
Yet social media ran wild with the moment and lambasted Angel Reese for simply repeating Clark’s actions.
And that’s when Black Twitter checked in.
“If it wasn’t ‘classless’ when Caitlin Clark did it, don’t call it classless when Angel Reese does it. Let the women compete, it’s sports!!” tweeted Emmanuel Acho.
“If you praised Caitlin Clark as competitive, fiery, and passionate for doing the “You can’t See me” celebration and are criticizing Angel Reese for the same we already know!!” tweeted Ryan Clark.
At the end of the day, we watched a great Final Four and a great championship game.
We watched, arguably, the best player in the nation led her team to the championship for the first time in program history and a great coach, who added nine new players to her team, win the program’s first NCAA basketball title.
Everything that happened on the court was part of the game. But those of you who chose to make it something more because of your own hypocrisy, well that’s your bad.
Holly Rowe said it best in her tweet.
“People hating on Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark. Stop. Unapologetically confident young women should be celebrated NOT hated. Get used to it.”
Or better yet, learn how the game is played so you’ll understand what’s really going on.
