Jill Biden’s press secretary has walked again feedback the primary woman made about inviting Iowa’s girls’s basketball group to the White House after their loss within the NCAA championship recreation on Sunday.
Biden watched LSU’s 102-85 victory over Iowa from the stands on the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday evening. National champions steadily talk over with the White House after name victories, however Biden broke with custom when she urged Iowa may too.
“I do know we will have the champions come to the White House; we at all times do. So, we are hoping LSU will come,” Biden said on Monday. “But, you realize, I’m going to inform Joe I feel Iowa will have to come too, as a result of they performed this sort of just right recreation.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about whether Joe Biden would also extend an invitation to Iowa — and whether it would be a joint visit with LSU or a separate engagement. However, the first lady received pushback for her comments,
LSU star Angel Reese tweeted a link to a story on Jill Biden’s remarks on Monday. “A JOKE,” she wrote, in conjunction with 3 rolling-on-the-floor-laughing emojis.
On Tuesday, Jill Biden’s press secretary, Vanessa Valdivia to explain that the primary woman “admires how far women have advanced in sports since the passing of Title IX” and that “[her] The feedback in Colorado have been meant to applaud the historical recreation and all girls athletes. She appears to be like ahead to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win on the White House.”
Iowa did not immediately respond to a request for comment on a potential White House invitation.
The Iowa–LSU match-up was the most watched women’s college basketball game of all time in the US. It averaged 9.9 million viewers, up 103% from last year’s final.
It also raised debate around race. LSU had mostly Black players and Iowa had mostly white players. Many believed Iowa’s star player, Caitlin Clark, received more positive coverage than Reese.
Reese – the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player – received scrutiny after she waved her hand in front of her face while staring down Clark in the final moments of LSU’s win, then pointed toward her finger, a reference to the championship ring she was about to receive .
Social media lit up in the aftermath, with some saying it was merely trash talk and part of the game, while others condemned Reese for lacking grace in victory. Reese was unapologetic.
“All yr, I used to be criticized about who I used to be,” Reese said. “I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. But when other people do it, y’all say nothing. So this was for the girls that look like me, that’s going to speak up on what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you.”
Reese is black and Clark is white.
Clark made a equivalent face-waving gesture all the way through Iowa’s Elite Eight victory over Louisville. Clark set the document for issues scored in an NCAA match with 191 in six video games. She didn’t seem to be suffering from Reese’s gestures and didn’t point out them in postgame interviews.
In Monday’s remarks, Biden additionally praised how a long way girls’s sports activities in the USA have come since 1972, when Title IX gave girls equivalent rights in sports activities at colleges that obtain federal investment.
“It was once so thrilling, wasn’t it? It was once this sort of nice recreation” she said. “I’m old enough that I remember when we got Title IX. We fought so hard, right? We fought so hard. And look at where women’s sports have come today.”