South Carolina women's basketball to cancel home-and-home with BYU

After the events that transpired during a recent volleyball game between BYU and Duke, the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball program is electing to change their opponent for their home opener. South Carolina agreed to a home-and-home deal with BYU, which was set to start this upcoming season. But given what happened against the lady Blue Devils, where racial slurs were directed toward one of Duke’s players, the Gamecocks will be in the market for a new team to face off to start the season.

South Carolina’s head basketball coach Dawn Staley released a statement on the program’s decision.

“As a head coach, my job is to do what’s best for my players and staff,” said Staley. “The incident at BYU has led me to reevaluate our home-and-home, and I don’t feel that this is the right time for us to engage in this series.”

In conjunction with Staley’s statement, South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner added this.

“Dawn and I have discussed her thoughts on the situation. I support Dawn and all of our coaches in their right to schedule games and opponents that are best for their teams.”

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Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson speaks out about racist incident at BYU

Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson isn’t going to remain silent regarding a racist incident that she encountered while the Blue Devils were traveling to face the BYU Cougars.

The incident was brought to light on Twitter by Lesa Pamplin, who was attending the match due to the fact that Richardson — who is the lone Black starter for Duke — is her goddaughter. According to Pamplin, some BYU fans directed slurs towards Richardson every time she served, and authorities had to be placed near the Duke bench due to their threatening language.

Afterwards, BYU banned a fan for directing slurs towards Robinson, and released a statement apologizing to Richardson and the Blue Devils program as a whole. Additionally, BYU added that the fan was not a student, although they did sit in the student section.

Now, Richardson has released a statement on the matter through her Twitter account.