Emmanuel Acho, host of the Fox Sports show “Speak,” is getting flamed by fellow sportscasters and fans alike for his brutal tongue-lashing of college basketball star Angel Reese.
Acho waxed philosophical about how it was wrong for the LSU women’s basketball player to tearfully complain about the torrential downpour of hate messages she gets after proclaiming that she loves “being the villain.”
Reese, aka the “Bayou Barbie,” said she accepted the antagonist label that was slapped on her. However, she addressed the undeserved personal attacks during her postgame press conference:
Reese, 21, and the LSU Tigers were eliminated from the 2024 March Madness tournament in their rematch against the Iowa Hawkeyes before a record TV audience of 12 million viewers. The two teams broke their own record of nine million viewers during last year’s NCAA championship game in which LSU emerged victorious.
After the Hawkeyes exacted revenge this time, Acho was unsympathetic to Reese’s tears and even equated her to a cowardly cartoon dog.
Emmanuel Acho rips into Angel Reese
Black women have historically been the most marginalized group in America, but I’m going to give a gender neutral and racially indifferent take on Angel Reese:
“In sports, you can’t act like the big bad wolf, then cry like courage the cowardly dog.” pic.twitter.com/aUtxZ7JHk4
— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) April 2, 2024
During Acho’s stream of consciousness, his sports colleagues said he failed to mention how the overwhelmingly White Hawkeye fans — particularly Caitlin Clark’s disciples — were flooding Reese’s Instagram page with death threats, sexually explicit messages, and rabidly racist tropes.
Emmanuel Acho’s critics decry the alleged viciousness of his attack on Angel Reese
Respectfully, colleague – The disappointing thing about this take is you actually can’t have an informed opinion on this if you are choosing to be gender neutral and racially indifferent. Because that is impossible. Her existence as a black woman shapes both how she is seen by… https://t.co/MCffgUbace
— Taylor Rooks (@TaylorRooks) April 3, 2024
Joy Taylor, one of the co-hosts of “Speak” alongside Acho, joined sports analysts Taylor Rooks and Ryan Clark in forcefully clapping back at Acho:
