College Basketball
Stephen A. Smith believes there’s a racial component in the reaction to Angel Reese taunting Caitlin Clark in the national championship game.
As Reese and LSU defeated Clark’s Iowa squad on Sunday to win the national title, Reese hit Clark with the John Cena “You Can’t See Me” hand gesture.
Speaking on ESPN’s “First Take,” Smith said he is a big fan of Clark and that she has the potential to be the greatest women’s basketball of all-time, before saying he couldn’t let her off the hook.
“She instigated this kind of stuff — let’s call it what it is,” Smith said.
“She was waving. She was doing the Cena. How about what she did to Raven Johnson? She didn’t just go into the lane and not guard her against South Carolina in the semifinals. She waved her off! She didn’t mind being disrespectful! So why is it that we’re hesitant to bring that up?”
Smith concluded that race was a factor in the disparate commentary.
“We all know that there’s a white/black issue here, because the fact of the matter is when Caitlin did it people were celebrating it, and they were talking about nothing but her greatness,” Smith said.
“But then the second a sister stepped up, and threw it back in her face, now you’ve got half the basketball world saying, [in a mocking tone], ‘Well, that’s not the classiest thing to do.’ It was the exact same thing!”
In her postgame interview on ESPN, Reese mentioned what Smith was alluding to — that she delivered the gesture to Clark in response to what happened with Clark and South Carolina.
“I was waiting,” Reese said.
“Caitlin Clark is a hell of a player for sure, but I don’t take disrespect lightly. She disrespected Alexis [Morris] and my girls, South Carolina, they’re my SEC girls too. Y’all not going to disrespect them either.”
Smith continued to say that people who ripped Reese but not Clark were applying their critiques inconsistently.
“The fact that [Caitlin Clark’s instigation] hasn’t been brought up tells us a lot about our society as a whole,” he said.
“You know exactly what the hell you’re doing as people when you bring up how Angel Reese acted, but you don’t want to bring up how Caitlin Clark acted.”
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