Everyone's Saddened By Racial Crimes Against Women's Basketball Team

Utah women's basketball coach Lynne Roberts revealed on Monday night that her team dealt with racial hate crimes last week. 

It was reported that racial slurs were yelled at the Utah basketball team as they were walking to a restaurant for dinner last Thursday in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. A similar situation unfolded when they were leaving that same restaurant. 

Roberts opened up about this horrible situation during Tuesday night's postgame press conference. 

"Racism is real and it happens and it's awful," Roberts said. "So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting. For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it's messed up.

"It was a distraction and upsetting and unfortunate. This should be a positive for everybody involved. This should be a joyous time for our program and to have kind of a black eye on the experience is unfortunate."

We can't imagine how hard this situation must have been for the Utes. There's no place in this world for this type of behavior, and the fact that college students had to deal with hate crimes while they're preparing for the biggest game of their lives makes it even worse. 

"Absolutely devastating to hear this," Kim Adams of ESPN said. 

"I absolutely HATE this happened, but it’s also something we’ve been saying for decades, and nobody believes us," one person wrote on X. 

"That really stinks and glad Gonzaga helped them get another hotel outside of CDA," a second person said. "No one should have to deal with that."

Another person tweeted, "For the athletes to have to deal with this type of crap is beyond unacceptable." 

Utah's team was relocated after it reported this issue to the NCAA and Gonzaga. While that's a relief to hear, it doesn't erase the damage that was already done. 

Unfortunately, Utah's season ended on Monday with a 77-66 loss to Gonzaga.