BOSTON ― A fan sitting courtside was ejected from the Connecticut Sun game at TD Garden on Tuesday night.

After a timeout just over midway through the second quarter, a male fan wearing a Caitlin Clark Indiana Fever shirt was removed from his seat after a verbal interaction with Sun guard Saniya Rivers, who was standing near the fan to inbound the ball.

Rivers requested for the fan to be removed after disclosing what had been said to the referees and arena staff.

“I won’t get into what he said, but if you know me, I’m not taking any type of disrespect,” Rivers said after the game. “So if it’s a form of a threat, whatever it is, you’re out of there.

“I just knew that I could use my power in that moment because I’m not taking any disrespect… it just sucks because he wasted all that money on a courtside seat, just to say one thing — it didn’t even bother me because I still produced, so it is what it is.”

Sun players and staff quickly pulled Rivers away from the initial interaction after seeing her distress. Connecticut fans cheered and celebrated as the fan was escorted out by arena security.

“All of Connecticut in the crowd had my back, the team had my back (and) the coaches,” Rivers said.

Rivers had eight points, two steals, three assists and five rebounds in 29 minutes for Connecticut.

The email came last week, said Alison Croney Moses, an invitation to a Zoom chat with Trustees of Reservations’ art curators Sarah Montross and Tess Lukey. Moses, a Boston-based artist, was happy enough to hear from them, but didn’t know why.

“You don’t say no when a curator wants to talk to you,” she laughed. They exchanged small talk for a while, and then they got down to business. “At about the seven minute mark, they said, ‘So, you’re getting the Rappaport Prize, and it comes with $50,000.’ I didn’t submit anything. I didn’t apply. And I just started crying.”

Croney Moses, 42, was officially named the 26th recipient of the prize Tuesday, given annually by the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, a Trustees property, to an artist with strong New England ties (last year, the Maine-based artist Jeremy Frey was the winner; in 2023, it was Cambridge’s Tomashi Jackson).

Moses was already having a banner year. Her piece called “This Moment for Joy,” an angular splay of undulating planks of red oak commissioned by the inaugural Boston Public Art Triennial, is perched prominently on an expanse of lawn at the Charlestown Navy Yard right now, in eyeshot of the U.S.S. Constitution Museum. In August, she’ll be one of the artists featured in the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston’s Foster Prize exhibition, a biennial affair that celebrates artists from the city .

Outward appearances of success, though, can be misleading. Moses, who balances her art career with the active lives of her two young children, has struggled to find space and time to pursue her work. The prize, she said, is like a pressure valve being released. “Honestly, I really was in tears,” she said. “It’s hard to tell from the outside, because I know it looks like I’m doing very well, but financially, being an artist in Boston is difficult. It’s really, really difficult. This gives me space to breathe.”

The timing of the prize could hardly have come at a better time. Moses, whose work is largely sculpture, and mosly in wood, has only been able to devote herself full-time to making art in the last two years; before that, she had a 10-year career working in non-proifts, leaving art to brief slivers of time in the evening and on weekends, when work and parenting weren’t in the way.

The prize places no restrictions on how the money can be used, and does not require artists to produce a piece or body of work. On a follow-up call with the Rappaport family, the local philanthropists who fund the prize, Moses made clear both her gratitude and how important a no-strings-attached gift can be for any artist.

“Any time I’ve had access to unrestricted funding, it’s given me the opportunity to get deeper into my practice, “she said. ”Literally, right before that Zoom call, I was looking at job postings, really thinking: Do I need a full-time job again? Something like this tells me: You are an artist. You should be doing this. And that’s huge.”

One thing the prize can no longer provide, unfortunately, is the winner being given a solo exhibition at the de Cordova, which it did for many years. The museum has been closed since 2023 for an overhaul of its HVAC system (the last was Sonia Clark in 2021). But Moses is already thinking about how her newfound freedom might transform her practice.

Thematically, she’s devoted: “This Moment for Joy,” a minimalist cocoon that ripples and curls into a protective embrace, is a monument to the warmth of the Black women in her life who inspire and support her; using elegant wood forms, Moses means to honor Black motherhood and interrogate a society that has made it perilous and undervalued for generations.

The prize, she said, is opening her mind to expansive treatments on the theme. A project she’s been mulling involving sound and video – both firsts for her, and a real risk to attempt with bills to pay – now seems possible. “Right now, I work deadline to deadline,” she said. “I don’t ever feel like I’m really able to dream and experiment. Now, I can.”

Alison Croney Moses’s “This Moment for Joy,” a project of the Boston Public Art Triennial, remains at the Charlestown Navy Yard, 1 – 5th St., through Oct. 31.

The Foster Prize exhibition opens August 28 at the Institute for Contemporary Art Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive.

Murray Whyte can be reached at murray.whyte@globe.com. Follow him @TheMurrayWhyte.

Indiana Fever forward and NCAA champion Aliyah Boston is investing in Boston Legacy FC, the NWSL club announced Monday, joining an investment group that includes gymnast Aly Raisman, actress Elizabeth Banks and Celtics general manager Brad Stevens and his wife, Tracy.

Boston, 28, fell in love with basketball in the U.S. Virgin Islands before she moved to Massachusetts when she was 12 years old and played high school basketball at Worcester Academy, where she was named Gatorade Player of the Year three times. Her No. 00 jersey was the first ever to be retired by the school.

“I’m proud to join the ownership group of the Boston Legacy,” Boston said in a statement. “This city helped raise me, and the support I felt here shaped so much of who I am. I couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to invest into a franchise that’s building something special for its players, for the city, and for women’s sports as a whole.

“And yes,” she said, “Boston repping Boston just felt right!”

The South Carolina alumnae won an NCAA championship with the Gamecocks in 2022, her junior year. The following year, the Indiana Fever took her with the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft. Boston was named Rookie of the Year and has made the WNBA All-Star roster each season she’s played professionally. Boston also played for Vinyl BC in the inaugural season of the Unrivaled basketball league.

“Aliyah’s investment in our club demonstrates the strength of women’s sports as our two leagues — the WNBA and NWSL — continue to grow and expand,” said Legacy controlling owner Jennifer Epstein in a statement.

“She is a proven winner who understands what it takes to build a championship team, and her presence in our investor group brings an invaluable athlete perspective. It’s an exciting time to see professional female athletes help shape the future of global women’s sports,” Epstein added.

Boston’s Fever teammate, Caitlin Clark, previously joined a Cincinnati-based ownership group looking to bring an NWSL expansion team to that city. The bid ultimately failed in favor of the group in Denver.

The Legacy’s announcement of Boston’s involvement as an investor comes days after the club made striker Aïssata Traoré its second signing, contracting her through the 2028 season as the first player from Mali to compete in the NWSL. She, like their first signing Annie Karich, will play on loan until preseason begins in January.

On June 25, the Legacy named Filipa Patão its inaugural head coach. Patão comes to Boston from Lisbon, where she managed the Portuguese side Benfica for five years.

(Top photo: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)