Coded language in women’s basketball reinforces harmful stereotypes and undervalues the game’s physicality

One of the most underrated strategies in sports is when coaches or managers “work the refs.” The greats of their respective games aren’t just adept at X’s and O’s; they’re also mindful of how a few words — whether nice or nasty — can turn into a favorable whistle.

It is certainly a tactic coaches employ to protect their players. But what happens when that strategy is harmful to opponents and the game itself?

Ole Miss’ 81-66 win over Gonzaga in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament was largely uneventful, but the postgame news conference provided fireworks for the discerning ear. While Gonzaga forward Lauren Whittaker admitted that Ole Miss’ physicality “in general was probably a little bit of a shock to us coming in,” her coach, Lisa Fortier, stirred controversy when she said Whittaker was “bear-mauled.”

That narrative seeped over into Ole Miss’ second-round matchup Sunday against host Minnesota, which ultimately will be remembered for Amaya Battle’s tiebreaking bucket with 0.7 seconds left that sent the Golden Gophers to the Sweet 16. Afterward, Ole Miss coach Yolett “Coach Yo” McPhee-McCuin lamented the way the game was officiated and that senior star Cotie McMahon fouled out after playing just 21 minutes.

“I was in the locker room just thinking about other star players on teams. I’ve just never seen them fouled out in a March Madness game,” McPhee-McCuin said.

“I don’t think that’s why we lost the game. I just know that Cotie is [our] leading scorer, [SEC] Newcomer of the Year, all of the things, and she plays 20 minutes, and it’s disappointing.”

It reminded me of former Iowa coach Lisa Bluder’s commentary that preceded the Final Four in 2023, in which Iowa was slated to play coach Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks. Prior to the game, Bluder said rebounding against South Carolina, which entered the matchup on a 42-game winning streak, was like being in a “bar fight.” Iowa ultimately defeated the Gamecocks 77-73.

Staley was resolute after the game — defiant even — saying her team would “not change” its style of play.

“I do think with all the talk of how we play and the physical nature in which we play and the description of our team, I do think it plays a part,” Staley said after the game. “People got to do what they got to do to win. I’m not going to stoop that low. We’ve won a lot of basketball games doing it this way. We’re not changing.”

It should go without saying that language such as “bear-mauling” and “bar fighting” is coded and ultimately factored into the officiating of postseason play.

“I’m just going to try and fall and see what happens,” Minnesota’s Battle innocuously said when asked about McMahon’s physicality. “It worked out.”

I don’t blame Battle for taking advantage of the situation. I blame the weaponization of language that created the uneven playing field.

Some folks might say what happened to South Carolina and Iowa ultimately grew the game. The 2023 national championship between Iowa and LSU set off a manufactured rivalry between the Hawkeyes’ Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese that still endures.

A year later, subsequent rematches between Iowa and LSU, and then Iowa and South Carolina, put the women’s game into another stratosphere.

The question is, at what cost?

Why is it that Black coaches and players (Read: Black women) have to bear the mental toll of racially charged matchups? After the LSU-Iowa rematch in the 2024 Elite Eight, Reese said winning the 2023 national title — and her memorable taunt of Clark — came with a dark side.

“I’ve been attacked so many times, death threats, I’ve been sexualized, I’ve been threatened, I’ve been so many things, and I’ve stood strong every single time,” Reese said. “I just try to stand strong for my teammates because I don’t want them to see me down and not be there for them. All this has happened since I won the national championship. It sucks, but I still wouldn’t change.”

When weaponized language on and off the court goes unchecked, it creates a fanaticized atmosphere that harms the game more than it helps. It empowers trolls who aren’t supporters of women’s basketball at all, only the proxy of whiteness or what it might mean to silence Black women they think are loud or brutish.

Further, in the specific case of women’s basketball, it doesn’t prepare athletes for the next level of competition. The WNBA and the Unrivaled league have been defined by exciting and physical play, which fans are supporting in droves. When critics of the WNBA’s style of play lashed out in defense of Clark, longtime supporters and historians of the game responded simply: This is how the game is played.

What it revealed was who had been fans of the game for years versus the casual watchers who had just arrived for a myriad of reasons. Further, it showed that women were held to an unfair standard when it came to competition, as newer viewers prioritized aesthetics over the intensity that has defined professional basketball leagues.

For the most part, the leagues and fans have started to appreciate the physicality and progressivism of female basketball players. On March 23, WNBA players unanimously voted yes on a new collective bargaining agreement that not only carved out allowances for current and past players but also paved the way for future generations to profit from their labor. Meanwhile, Unrivaled sold out NBA arenas in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, New York, signaling that player power has transcended league and national branding.

Ensuring such success continues means controlling certain narratives, particularly the words that trade temporary and/or individualistic gains for the greater good. The semi-professional and professional women competing in basketball leagues are not cavewomen. They are businesswomen and competitors at the top of their game who should be treated as such.

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