Aliyah Boston, the undisputed greatest participant in ladies’s school basketball, was left off ESPN’s invite record for Wednesday night time’s ESPY Awards, and her coach wasn’t having any of it.
South Carolina ladies’s basketball coach Daybreak Staley, who isn’t shy about standing up for her gamers, referred to as out ESPN on Twitter on Sunday for not bringing the unanimous 2022 Nationwide Participant of the Yr to Los Angeles for the annual awards present.
“Like actually….who within the room from @espn@ESPYS determined it was an awesome concept to not invite @MarchMadnessWBB NPOY DPOY….not one individual was capable of see the uproar this might trigger?” Staley mentioned in a tweet. “There’s undoubtedly one thing unsuitable with the make up of the room……the combat proceed [sic]….#WBBSTANDUP“
Staley adopted that up by calling on NCAA ladies’s basketball stakeholders to weigh in.
Boston, the 6-foot-5 middle, is nominated for “Greatest School Athlete, Ladies’s Sports activities,” after a junior season during which she averaged 16.8 factors and 12.5 rebounds per recreation to steer South Carolina to its second NCAA ladies’s basketball title.
“Now we have the utmost respect for Aliyah Boston, Daybreak Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks,” ESPN mentioned in a press release. “On account of each COVID restrictions and a brand new venue with a lot much less seating capability than earlier exhibits, ‘The 2022 ESPYs’ prioritized athlete invites to concentrate on particular awards that will probably be handed out in the course of the broadcast.”
This yr’s ceremony is on the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, which has a capability of three,400. From 2008 to 2019, the present was held on the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, which has a capability of seven,100. Final yr’s awards present was moved from its ordinary West Coast location to The Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York due to the coronavirus pandemic. The out of doors venue additionally has a 3,400-person capability, which appears to discredit ESPN’s response.
Final yr’s recipient of the award, UConn star Paige Bueckers, not solely was in attendance to obtain the award, but additionally took the chance to acknowledge that she’s a white participant in a sport dominated by Black athletes.
“I feel it’s time for change,” Bueckers mentioned throughout final yr’s ESPYs. “Sports activities media holds the important thing to storylines. Sports activities media and sponsors inform us who is effective, and you've got informed the world that I mattered at this time, and everybody who voted, thanks. However I feel we should always use this energy collectively to additionally rejoice Black ladies.”
The three different nominees within the class this yr are Oklahoma softball participant Jocelyn Alo, who led the Sooners to a second straight nationwide championship, Florida State soccer participant Jaelin Howell and Boston School lacrosse participant Charlotte North, the all-time main scorer in NCAA ladies’s lacrosse historical past.
Along with being named Nationwide Participant of the Yr, Boston additionally received the Lisa Leslie Heart of the Yr award for a third-straight season and was named the 2022 Honda Cup Collegiate Girl Athlete of the Yr.
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