Angel Reese, the LSU women’s basketball star, is back in the spotlight following a spectacular NCAA tournament game against Caitlin Clark’s Iowa team.
Reese faced harsh criticism after the national championship game when, in the last seconds of LSU’s victory, she looked in Clark’s direction and pointed to her ring finger, indicating that she was about to win a title while Clark was not. Though Clark herself stated that she had no problem with the taunting, the incident sparked a blaze of criticism.
Reese addressed that criticism, as well as the general online hatred she has received, in the aftermath of the Tigers’ national title run, following LSU’s season-ending loss to Iowa in the Elite Eight on Monday.
“I’ve gone through a lot,” Reese told reporters. “I have seen so much. I’ve been assaulted numerous times, with death threats, sexualized, threatened, and called a variety of names, and I’ve always stood strong.
“All of this has happened since I won the national title, and it sucks, but I wouldn’t change anything, and I’d still sit here and say I’m unashamedly myself. I’m going to always leave my mark, be who I am, and stand by it.”
However, “SPEAK” co-host Emmanuel Acho argued Tuesday in what he called a “gender-neutral and racially insensitive” opinion that Reese should not have played the victim after fouling out of Monday’s 94-87 defeat to Iowa.
“You can’t act like the big terrible wolf and then cry like Courage the Cowardly Dog,” Acho warned. “Because if you want to act grown, which she has, if you want to get paid like you’re grown, which you are, if you want to talk to grown folks like you’re grown, which you did postgame when you told a [UCLA] coach, ‘Watch your mouth,’ if you want to tell people, ‘Get your money up,’ then postgame when you lose, you’ve just got to take it on the chin.
“No one mourns when the villain loses. And Angel Reese, you claim to be the evil. Shout out to you since you were easily the second-best basketball player on the court. Aside from Caitlin Clark, it was you. Seventeen points and 20 rebounds — dawg. Showed up, second-largest game of your career, absolute dawg. But you cannot, under any circumstances, go to the platform and beg people to sympathize with you. Nobody has pity for the villain. You painted a bullseye on your back; why are you surprised when people shoot at you?”
ngel Reese postgame vs Iowa: “I’ve been through so much.”
Angel Reese postgame vs Iowa: “I’ve been through so much.”
Joy Taylor, Acho’s “SPEAK” co-host, disputed his assertion, claiming that Reese’s trash language was held to a different standard than that of male players.
