Last night’s Elite 8 matchup between Iowa and LSU’s women’s teams lived up to the hype.
A rematch from last year’s NCAA Women’s National Championship game, Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes got the better of Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers this time around, punching their ticket to the Women’s Final Four this year.
Led by 41 points from Caitlin Clark, the Hawkeyes gave LSU all they could handle, and at one point in the second half, LSU’s Hailey Van Lith just put her hands up and shrugged as Clark continued to drain threes from WAY beyond the arc. After the game, she even confessed that there wasn’t much she could do to stop her. It was pretty electric performance from Clark who will now face UConn in the Final Four, the school she wanted to go to, but was never recruited by.
But the performance, at least in the beginning of the game was overshadowed by conversation surrounding LSU’s absence for the national anthem before tipoff. And to be fair, it’s pretty common for LSU to be missing for the national anthem, but with so many eyeballs tuned into the LSU women’s team for the first time, it definitely caught the attention of folks on X, who tore into the team for the gesture.
However after the game, LSU coach Kim Mulkey told reporters that the move wasn’t intentional, and basically said that they have a specific pregame routine and it appears that it doesn’t necessarily include the national anthem:
“Honestly, I don’t even know when they anthem was played. We have a routine where we’re on the floor and we come off at the 12 minute mark. We come in and do our pregame stuff. I’m sorry, that’s nothing intentionally done.”
Not a great look, Kim.
It’s a free country… you can stand up, take your hat off and show reverence for this great country, or not, but to confess that your pregame routine essentially doesn’t include being present for the national anthem… something that just about every team, in any sport, participates in, it is a bad look. There’s no way around it. If you just don’t care, that’s fine… but know what the public perception is going to be when you make that decision… and then own it. This whole “awe golly, we must’ve missed it? Whoops…” excuse comes off a little disingenuous.
Mulkey is known for being a hard-nosed, tough love kind of coach (the Bill Belichick of college basketball), so much so that a “hit piece” was recently published in The Washington Post allegedly detailing how much of a piece of work she really is. Although, that “hit piece” wasn’t much of a hit at all… it more or less just told us what we already know… Mulkey is a no nonsense, old school basketball coach that cares about winning, not feelings.
So when it’s time to own up to blowing off the national anthem, where is that firecracker personality? Absent… just like her team for the national anthem. It doesn’t sound like the rest of X (formerly known as Twitter) is buying it either:
Can you say damage control?
— Frank Geffre🇺🇸🐬🏈🏒⚾️🏀⚽️ (@fgeffre1332) April 2, 2024
Complete BS
— Erik Willis (@ErikWillis21) April 2, 2024
It’s the crying after they receive some criticism. Laughable. Get a thicker skin. And act like you’ve been there before.
— paul (@pauliesmith3) April 2, 2024
1st time at a Basket Ball game apparently. 😳 🙄🙄🙄😠😡
— 🦅🇺🇸 Jd Mann 🇺🇸🦅 (@Jdmann88) April 2, 2024
Not knowing is just as bad as intentionally leaving.
🇺🇸
— weeneywaney (@weenywaney) April 2, 2024
Pretty much said “ya know, we dont really care about the, whats the name of it? Oh yea, Anthem or whatever, see we do stuff, so sometimes we dont do other stuff I dunno”
— Malissa Canton (@MalCan4401) April 2, 2024
