ALBANY, N.Y. — LSU guard Hailey Van Lith defended her team Sunday following a Los Angeles Times column that described players as “dirty debutantes,” calling those who perceive them negatively as “being racist toward my teammates.”
Van Lith said the team saw the commentary before its Sweet 16 matchup against UCLA on Saturday. She wishes they had not read it because “that can crush your soul a little bit that someone would ever say that about us that doesn’t know us.”
“We do have a lot of Black women on this team, and unfortunately, that bias does exist still today, and a lot of the people that are making those comments are being racist towards my teammates,” Van Lith, who is white, said. “I’m in a unique situation where I see with myself, I’ll talk trash and I’ll get a different reaction than if Angel [Reese] talks trash. I have a duty to my teammates to have their back. Some of the words that were used in that article were very sad and upsetting.
“Calling us the dirty debutantes, that has nothing to do with sports. That’s not motivating. But in my opinion, I know for a fact that people see us differently because…
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