South Carolina’s Don Staley lands the NCAA on disproportionate positions in the women’s tournament

The NCAA has received heavy criticism for the wide disparity in facilities and facilities at the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments this year. Now, one of the nation’s top female coaches has been vigorously weighed on the issue.

South Carolina’s Don Staley expressed his disgust with the situation by writing an open letter on Friday. In addition, she accused the NCAA of using women’s sports as pawns because it tried to sympathize with the causes of social justice.

Women’s bracket: dates, times, TV schedules

Team USA coach Staley also wrote, “Now we know the NCAA’s seasonal messaging about ‘solidarity’ and ‘equality’ and the message about convenience and sound for the situation after the murder of George Floyd.” Was. “

“We cannot allow (NCAA President) Mark Emmert and his team as leaders of young women to use us and our student-athletes at our convenience. Every team here in San Antonio has earned and respected Is entitled to the same minimum level of. Men. All teams here deal with the same issues as men’s teams this season; yet their ‘reward’ is different. “

A firestorm erupted on Thursday when photos from a women’s bubble in San Antonio were posted on social media. The example that was most noted was the comic difference in weight training equipment: a full weight room inside the men’s bubble versus a single rack of dumbbells in the women’s facility.

There was also criticism of the disparity in women’s on-site food and complimentary items for men and women participants.

NCAA officials in charge of women’s and men’s basketball Lynn Holzman and Dan Gavitt issued apologies on Friday, but did not pledge immediate action.

Holzman tweeted on Thursday that space limitations in San Antonio were at the center of the problem. Staley looked beyond those two Fridays and went straight to the top of the NCAA.

“There is no answer that the Mark Emmert-led NCAA executive leadership could give to clarify the disparities,” Staley wrote. “Mark Emmert and his team chose the point blank to make them!”

Dick’s Sporting Goods – perhaps sensing a public relations opportunity – pledged to send the equipment to Texas.

It was not clear Friday night whether the NCAA accepted the offer. The women’s tournament starts on Sunday. South Carolina is the No. 1 seed in the Hempstairs Region.