LSU women’s head basketball coach Kim Mulkey isn’t the only one who has a problem with a recent LA Times piece which took some jabs at members of her team.
Star guard Hailey Van Lith has now commented on the article written by Ben Bloch of the LA Times which framed the LSU Tigers as “basketball villains.”
After the piece underwent revisions due to not meeting Times editorial standards, a paragraph was removed wherein Bolch characterized UCLA’s Sweet 16 game against LSU as a broader contest between “America’s sweethearts” and “its dirty debutantes,” the latter referring to the Tigers.
In response to LSU’s 78-69 victory, Van Lith remarked that she has personally observed a double standard applied to the team and suggested that racism plays a role in some of the criticism directed towards the Tigers.
“We do have a lot of Black women on this team, and unfortunately, that bias does exist still today, and a lot of the people that are making those comments are being racist towards my teammates,” the senior guard told reporters.
Although some of Bolch’s language has been softened, it still presents a clear contrast between UCLA and LSU.
He poses a question to his readers, asking, “Do you prefer the team that wants to grow women’s basketball or the one seemingly hellbent on dividing it?”
Bolch also portrays UCLA as operating “in the saintly shadows while being as wholesome as a miniature stuffed Bruin mascot.”
While this description might seem innocuous when taken alone, within the context of Bolch’s column aiming to delineate clear battle lines, it implies certain negative connotations about LSU.
