After Virginia Tech women's basketball made it to the Final Four, the Hokies fell to LSU; the Tigers then beat Iowa for the national championship, with LSU star Angel Reese the target of some criticism after seemingly taunting Iowa's Caitlin Clark.
Clark dismissed that criticism afterward, saying Reese did nothing wrong, and Adam Epstein asked Hokies coach Kenny Brooks about his thoughts on Friday (April 7).
"When we're in individual workouts, "I'll tell them 'hey, very subtly you can let your opponent know that you're not intimidated or that you're better than them without showboating,'" Brooks said. "So I will not tolerate showboating going outside of something that may have been said, you know, just in the in the heat of the moment very slyly. But if you go outside of that, if any of my kids ever get a technical foul, they come out immediately and we have a discussion about it, and I think we only have one kid who got a technical foul this year.
"I'm all about respect -- respect the game, respect your opponent, respect your university, respect your family's name, and there's many ways that you can show your opponent that you're tougher than them without taunting and just bringing negative attention to yourself."
AWadd asked about what would happen if a player made John Cena's "you can't see me" gesture.
"We would talk about it," Brooks said. "We will talk about it if no one really saw it. And I'm like 'maybe they can't see you, but you don't need to tell them.' You see it all across the landscape of basketball. You watch the NBA and they're doing it, you watch the WNBA and they're doing it, but my mom used to always say 'just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean you need to -- if everybody jumped off a cliff, you wouldn't jump off a cliff, would you?' And I'm like 'no, ma'am.'
"It is a part of the game, it is growing and I am one to say you defend yourself, but you don't need to step outside of yourself and showboat."
You can listen to more of the segment below.
