South Carolina women’s basketball team catches flak for skipping national anthem at Final Four

South Carolina’s Daybreak Staley has the Gamecocks on the precipice of a ladies’s basketball nationwide championship however the crew was catching some flak for Friday evening’s outing.

The Gamecocks weren’t on the court docket for the nationwide anthem earlier than their tip-off in opposition to Louisville. Cardinals gamers stood at one facet of the court docket with their arms intertwined. 

Staley’s crew has stayed within the locker room in the course of the anthem or protested in some type because the center of the 2020-21 school basketball season. She advised Andscape on the time that’s gamers had been sitting in the course of the nationwide anthem in virtually each sport that season to “carry consciousness to racial injustice in our nation.”

“If opposing groups select to play the anthem in the course of the time we’re within the locker room, then we select to remain within the locker room,” she mentioned.

South Carolina Gamecocks gamers huddle earlier than their sport in opposition to the Louisville Cardinals in the course of the semifinals of the NCAA Womens Basketball Match on the Goal Heart on April 1, 2022 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
(Ben Solomon/NCAA Images by way of Getty Photographs)

Staley added: “I really like our nation, too. I don’t like what our nation has come to, or what our nation has been, however I’d prefer to suppose that there are folks in our nation that’s going to steer us extra in a unified manner than a divisive manner, and I’m right here for that.”

In line with Insider, most groups have stayed within the locker room as effectively till Louisville got here out.

Some Cardinals gamers had been sporting Adidas-branded shirts with a message on the again: “No particular person in the USA, shall on the premise of intercourse, be excluded from participation in, be denied the advantages, or be subjected to discrimination underneath any schooling program or exercise receiving federal monetary help.”

Louisville Cardinals warm-up for NCAA Ladies’s Remaining 4 sport sporting adidas “Extra Is Doable” tees as a part of adidas’ NIL announcement which celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX on Friday, April 1 at Goal Heart in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
(Elsa/Getty Photographs for adidas)

South Carolina performs UConn for the nationwide championship on Sunday evening.