Utah women are shaken by racism
Members of the Utah women’s basketball team were subjected to racism near their hotel in Idaho last week when a pickup truck with a Confederate flag drove near them and the driver began using offensive language, authorities said Tuesday. The team was left shaken and wound up moving to a different hotel the next day.
Utah coach Lynne Roberts said her team experienced a series of hate crimes after arriving at its first NCAA Tournament hotel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She revealed what happened after Utah lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the tournament Monday night and authorities confirmed some of the details the following day.
Roberts said the incidents happened last Thursday night after the team arrived and they were disturbing to the traveling party to the point there were concerns about safety. Utah and other teams played their games in Spokane, Wash., but the Utes were staying about 30 miles away in Coeur d’Alene before they were relocated to a different hotel Friday.
“We had several instances of some kind of racial hate crimes toward our program and [it was] incredibly upsetting for all of us,” Roberts said. “In our world, in athletics and in university settings, it’s shocking. There’s so much diversity on a college campus and so you’re just not exposed to that very often.”
Tony Stewart, an official with the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, said at a news conference the Utes were walking from the hotel to a restaurant when the truck drove up and the driver began using racist language. After the team left the restaurant, the same driver returned “reinforced by others,” Stewart said, and they revved their engines and again yelled at the players.
“We all just were in shock, and we looked at each other like, did we just hear that? . . . Everybody was in shock — our cheerleaders, our students that were in that area that heard it clearly were just frozen,” Utah deputy athletic director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com.
Utah said it filed a police report the night of the incidents. Coeur d’Alene police chief Lee White said Tuesday about 100 people were around the area that night, but investigators need to interview those affected. He said there are two state charges that could be enforced — malicious harassment and disorderly conduct — if someone is arrested. White also said he was working with the FBI.
Clark, Iowa set TV mark
Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes can claim another record — the most-viewed firstround game in women’s NCAA Tournament history.
The Hawkeyes’ 91-65 win over Holy Cross Saturday averaged 3.23 million viewers on ABC, according to Nielsen. The viewership surpassed the 2.50 million who watched last year’s Elite Eight game between Iowa and Louisville, making this the most-viewed women’s tournament game ever — excluding Final Four contests and title games.
It was the third Iowa game this season where the viewer average was more than 3 million. The seven Iowa games on network television — ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox — have averaged 2.27 million. Iowa’s regional semifinal game against Colorado on Saturday will be on ABC.
Hiring time
Kentucky hired
Brooks as women’s coach after a successful tenure with Virginia Tech highlighted by the ACC regular-season championship a year after winning the tournament title and reaching its first Final Four. The school announced Brooks’s hiring hours after Virginia Tech said he would leave the program. Kentucky will introduce Brooks as its ninth coach Thursday . . . Clemson hired Chattanooga coach Shawn Poppie to be its coach. Poppie received a sixyear contract worth $3.375 million through the 2029-30 season.
Kenny
MEN
Ratings are up
The first three days of the men’s NCAA Tournament attracted record ratings, only to see the momentum stifled because of Sunday’s games being blowouts.
Overall, the tournament is averaging 9.07 million viewers on CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV. That is a slight increase over the 9.05 million average at this point last year.
Through Saturday, the tournament averaged 9.0 million, making it the most-watched through that stage.
Sunday’s games averaged 8.91 million, an 8 percent decrease over last year. The average winning margin of the eight games was 18.9 points.