My generation would define showing class in sports to mean showing good sportsmanship.  I'll speak for myself when I say that this was an ingrained life lesson starting at an early age.  We even had trophy winners based on excellent sportsmanship.  Today, complaining about poor sportsmanship feels akin to yelling at someone to stay off their lawn.  Not that sportsmanship has lost all meaning, but it truthfully does not appear to be regarded with nearly the same level of significance as it did a generation ago.  Over the past two days, we've seen two examples of questionable at best sportsmanship, one receiving national publicity and the other being so subtle that it likely will not even make the news.

Much has been spoken and written about concerning the women's national championship game.  In case you have not been following this, the sport's best college player, Iowa's Caitlin Clark, led Iowa to an upset over previously undefeated South Carolina, only to then lose to LSU for the championship.  Clark, who is white (sadly, this must be mentioned) is an uber-talented player who also enjoys trash talking (and gesturing) as part of her game.  It motivates her.  LSU is led by Angel Reese, who is black (sadly, this too must be mentioned).  Reese is a double-double machine and happens to be quite outspoken.  I do not follow the game where I would know whether this is Angel's routine behavior but I do know that Angel was determined to give Caitlin a taste of her own medicine.  Emotions were already pretty high as a result of an embarrasingly officiated game (against both teams).  To Clark's credit, she did not complain, or even say a word, about Reese's antics.

But that hasn't stopped America from weighing in.  Everyone seems to have an opinion so here's mine.  In a perfect world, there would be no trash talking or gesturing to begin with.  Remember, good sportsmanship?  However, I am not naive enough to think that in 2023, this ought to be a realistic expectation.  So, where I am going to draw the line is in two places.  First, you can trash talk someone without looking to personally humiliate them.  When you go out of your way to mock a player or coach on the other team, you've crossed the line.  Second, once the game is over (or has essentially been decided in the closing moments), knock it off.  Angel Reese did not need to keep waving her hand as if to say that a (championship) ring is about to go on one of her fingers.  I say this not because she is black, but because she no longer needed any form of self-motivation.  This was now about making a statement and nothing more.  I missed the Iowa-South Carolina but if Caitlin was behaving similarly once this game was over (or Iowa had the game safely won), I'd say the same thing about her.   There really has to be ways to celebrate a win without so blatantly showing up your opponent.

And to anyone who wants to insert racism into this story, I am sorry but I'm not with you on this one.  The issue isn't why a white player can do this but a black player can't?  The issue is to understand what in-game actions can and should (or can not and should not) be done, and when it's time to stop altogether.

Then came the "incident" that likely won't make any news.  Let me first say that I give a ton of credit to Dan Hurley for the job he did in this tournament, as well as for his fast start to the season, and for getting his team to refocus after they lost 6 of 8 Big East games at one point.  I did not think it was a coincidence that prior to this season, Hurley's teams were 2-4 in the NCAA tournament, or that Hurley had yet to win a tournament game at UCONN in two previous tries (over 4 previous seasons).  I felt his high-strung nature trickled down to his players who in turn did not react well to any pressure.  I've never doubted his ability to recruit or coach, just his ability to effectively lead his team.  This year, he had a very talented team while at the same time, managed to tone down his behavior a bit.  The combination worked well.

That all said, Hurley is a jerk.  At least he comes across as one far more often than not.  At halftime last night, his team was up 12 and while anything was still possible, it seemed very apparent to most that UCONN would be winning it all.  During the brief interview, Hurley had opportunities to be humble (potentially saying things like "this game is far from over"; "we're playing a great SD State team") or even constructive ("we're turning the ball over too much", "we have to expect SD State to shoot better in the second half").  Instead, Hurley talks about how his team "should be up by 20" because of the 4 layups it missed.  Really?  Did the Aztec defense have nothing to do with these missed layups?  I suppose SD State did not miss any layups (actually, they shot 3-10 on layups for the game so they missed 7).  

The reality is that this is what I expected from Hurley.  He had a chance to display leadership or even humility. instead, he makes a classless remark that only served to reinforce my thoughts about him.  Sometimes, in sports and in life, the a-holes do come out on top.