The SEC Championship matchup between South Carolina and LSU saw "a late-game confrontation that led to multiple ejections"Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY NETWORK
The "good and the bad of the game has all come into sharper focus" as women's college basketball continues to grow in popularity, with “more eyes, more fans and more scrutiny,” according to Pete Iacobelli of the AP. This comes as the SEC Championship matchup between South Carolina and LSU “getting into a late-game confrontation that led to multiple ejections.” Chippy play, plenty of trash talking and players thrown out -- “something more familiar to fans watching an NBA game.” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said, “I just don’t want the people who are tuning in to women’s basketball to see that and think that is our game, because it isn’t.” Staley: “Our game is a really beautiful thing.” Last year, Clark and LSU F Angel Reese's “trash talking in the national championship game surprised fans who may not know that the women's game has plenty of that.” In November, the NCAA said that it was “putting a new emphasis on sportsmanship after last season saw a 33% increase in technical fouls,” including a “77% increase on techs given to head coaches and a whopping 193% increase on technical fouls assessed to personnel on the bench.” ESPN’s Debbie Antonelli said that the game's intensity at the college level “has always been high.” Antonelli: “I think when you step between the lines you're athletes and this is what competitive athletes do.” Staley added, “Real time is real time. … I know if they had a chance to do it all over again, they would do it differently” (AP, 3/11).
