Baylor Bears coach Kim Mulkey is taking stiff criticism for saying the NCAA tournament should stop coronavirus testing for the Final Four.
Mulkey made her feelings known in a presser after her team was eliminated from the tournament on Monday, ESPN reported.
“After the games today and tomorrow, there’s four teams left, I think, on the men’s side and the women’s side,” Mulkey said. “They need to dump the COVID testing. Wouldn’t it be a shame to keep COVID testing and then you got kids that test positive or something and they don’t get to play in the Final Four? So you just need to forget the COVID tests and get the four teams playing in each Final Four and go battle it out.”
Mulkey, who had the virus late last year, has railed about the “confusing” rules for mitigation of the coronavirus.
“One conference does this, one conference does that. The CDC says this. Everybody is confused. I’m confused,” the coach said in December. “I’m uncomfortable coaching. I understand, COVID is real. I’ve had it — come talk to me sometime. But I don’t know … all the calls and procedures, that’s gonna go on and make it unusual, uncomfortable for every program. We’re no different at Baylor.”
Still, she said the game would go on because “It’s called the almighty dollar.”
The reaction was swift on social media. Former ESPN talker Jemele Hill slammed Mulkey for being a Trump fan:
So unsolicited, and after a great performance by her team, Kim Mulkey suggested they stop testing the players for COVID because this inconvenient little pandemic might interfere with the Final Four.
Then again, she enthusiastically took her team to see Trump in the White House. https://t.co/BwEWa3i4Ip
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) March 30, 2021
But many others went on the attack, too:
How has this idiot not been fired yet? Or banned by the NCAA? To hell with her. https://t.co/AePMo2ato8
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 30, 2021
Kim Mulkey and Baylor University are the perfect combination of "I will always root for the other team"
— Ryan Rosenblatt, World Series Champion (@RyanRosenblatt) March 30, 2021
She is who you thought she was https://t.co/HzJGJa9kTg
— Ryan Rosenblatt, World Series Champion (@RyanRosenblatt) March 30, 2021
Who else remembers that time Kim Mulkey said people should be hit in the face if they questioned sending their kids to Baylor after the football rape scandal https://t.co/fx2A52SOyD
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) March 30, 2021
Kim Mulkey just said the NCAA needs to stop COVID testing at the Final Four so that one team doesn't get knocked out because of a positive test.
What?????????????
— Daniel Connolly (@DanielVConnolly) March 30, 2021
I will always support the Baylor players but between the school having explicitly anti-gay policies in its student handbook & Kim Mulkey being their head coach, I can’t ever really root for them. https://t.co/61MIMZPg17
— Britni de la Cretaz (@britnidlc) March 30, 2021
"To suggest that a (game), even one in the Final Four or for the national title, is more important than a player or coach's health is as troubling as it is ignorant. Mulkey, of all people, should know better, having had COVID herself," writes @nrarmour. https://t.co/TE8mNXyzrm
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 30, 2021
When is Kim Mulkey going to start losing recruits for the ignorant things she says 😒
— Jas (@JasTayler) March 30, 2021
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