Iowa guard Gabbie Marshall says she deleted her social media after she began receiving hateful comments after a late-game foul that cost UConn a chance to win the Final Four matchup against Iowa, according to ESPN.
With less than 4 seconds left in the game, Iowa led UConn 70-69. Marshall was screened by UConn's Aaliyah Edwards. Edwards was called for an illegal moving screen. Replays indicated it was the right call, but many still believed it wasn't right the foul was called in the final seconds, when fouls are sometimes overlooked.
"I've gotten a lot of hate comments," Marshall said during media availability before the national title game. "I don't know. I'm not the one that made the call. So I'm not sure why they're mad at me personally."
"When the right call's the right call, it's not fair to say you can't make that call with 10 seconds left when you can make it with 10 minutes, or two minutes left," Marshall said. "If it's the right call, it's the right call. It's out of my control to make the calls, but personally I thought it was an illegal screen and it's not like it was the first one of the game."
Marshall was trying to prevent UConn star Paige Bueckers from getting an open shot. After the game, Bueckers said the call didn't bother her, because it's no excuse for the way they played the entire game.
As for Marshall, she's leaving the digital space for now. "I've deleted social media," she said. "I feel like it just kind of overlooked the fact that I played my butt off the whole game trying to guard her, trying to get over screens the whole game and feel like that one play just consumed everything. That's all anyone's talking about. They're not talking about the fact that it was a great game between two great teams."
Head Coach Lisa Bluder also came to the defense of one of her star players. "It's unbelievable to me that you're going to criticize a 22-year-old kid for something that she had no control over," Bluder said. "I thought we handled that really well. We switched out onto it. I thought we were there to contest. I can't believe people would be so immature as to attack a 22-year-old on doing their job and doing really, really well."
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