On Sunday, Illinois basketball suffered one of the biggest upsets of the NCAA Tournament so far. The Fighting Illini, the Midwest Region No. 1 seed and one of the favorites to win the entire Tournament, fell to resurgent Cinderella Loyola Chicago, the No. 8 seed, 71-58. Unfortunately, the ugly part of sports fandom reared its ugly head once again, this time directed at Illini star big man Kofi Cockburn.
No player deserves online harassment after a loss, and certainly not Cockburn after his effort on Sunday. He led all scorers with 21 points and added nine rebounds, two steals, and two blocks against the Ramblers.
According to ESPN, Kofi Cockburn shared a racist post that someone aimed at him after the loss, writing “I blame his parents” in response. The Illinois basketball center’s post of the comment has since been deleted, but the school is reportedly investigating the matter.
The comment came just a day after Ohio State’s E.J. Liddell was on the receiving end of similar harassment, following the No. 2 seed Buckeyes’ first-round loss to 15-seed Oral Roberts. Like Illinois, Ohio State is investigating the threats made against Liddell.
Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn called out a racist comment left on his social media page after his team’s loss to Loyola Chicago. pic.twitter.com/yjMxDiQoTP
— Sporting News (@sportingnews) March 22, 2021
Illinois’ spokesperson told ESPN that the commenter in question has been “identified by others on social media.”
There’s truly no excuse for racist language like this towards any player. There are great things that come from sports fandom, but this is one of the really ugly parts of the experience that we can hopefully get rid of in due time.
[ESPN]
The post Illinois Investigating Racist Message Sent To Basketball Star appeared first on The Spun.
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