Source: Maddie Meyer / Getty
LSU won its first-ever national title in school history Sunday afternoon after beating out Iowa 102-85.
However, the women’s NCAA championship game didn’t go off without a complete hitch, with LSU’s Angel Reese being condemned for taunting Caitlin Clark, who’s been dominating the March Madness circuit with several 40-point games.
Reese did John Cena’s “You can’t see me” hand-waving gesture in Clark’s direction when there was less than a minute left, and it was clear that LSU was the victor. She then stared down the Iowa guard and repeatedly pointed to her ring finger in celebration.
The move was in response to Clark doing the same thing to Louisville during the Elite Eight game, but Reese pulling the move got an entirely different reaction on social media.
https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/status/1642648288280162305?s=20
Former ESPN host Keith Olbermann responded to the gesture by tweeting, “What a f-cking idiot,” while many echoed journalist Jose de Jesus Ortiz’s thoughts, who tweeted, “This is classless. Angel Reese is only 20, so she’s still young, but taunting Caitlin Clark like this shows a pure lack of class. Win with class, lose with class, play with class. Clark’s mom and dad can be proud that her daughter ignored the taunting. They raised her right.”
After the game, Reese spoke to the media about the criticism and how she’s being treated differently than others.
“All year I was critiqued about who I was. … I don’t fit the narrative. I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. Y’all told me that all year. But when other people do it, y’all say nothing,” Reese said. “So this was for the girls that look like me, that’s going to speak up on what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you. That’s what I did it for tonight. It was bigger than me tonight. It was bigger than me. Twitter is going to go on a rage every time, and I’m happy. I feel like I’ve helped grow women’s basketball this year. I’m super happy and excited. So I’m looking forward to celebrating in the next season.”
Despite a specific sector of social media being outraged, the “victim” brushed it off, admitting that she didn’t even see the taunt.
“All you can do is hold your head high, be proud of what you did, and all the credit in the world to LSU,” Clark said. “They were tremendous, they deserve it. They had a tremendous season. Kim Mulkey coached them so, so well. She’s one of the best basketball coaches of all time, and she only said really kind things to me in the handshake line, so I’m very grateful for that too. But honestly, I have no idea, and I was just trying to spend the last few moments on the court with especially the five people that I’ve started 93 games with and relishing every second of that.”
