Utah women's basketball coach Lynne Roberts said this week that her team experienced "racial hate crimes" while staying in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and was forced to change hotels.
According to Roberts, who spoke to reporters after losing in the second round to Gonzaga on Monday night, several incidents happened last Thursday night after the team arrived in the area for the tournament. Those incidents were disturbing enough that there were concerns for the team's safety, she said.
Utah was relocated to a different hotel on Friday.
"We had several instances of some kind of racial hate crimes toward our program and [it was] incredibly upsetting for all of us," Roberts said, according to ESPN. "In our world, in athletics and in university settings, it's shocking. There's so much diversity on a college campus and so you're just not exposed to that very often."
Utah, South Dakota State and UC Irvine were all staying at hotels in Idaho due to a lack of space in the Spokane area, where Gonzaga was playing host. Gonzaga received a waiver from the NCAA to allow teams to be housed in Coeur d'Alene.
"Racism is real and it happens and it's awful," Roberts said. "So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting. For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it's messed up."
Roberts says Gonzaga was instrumental in helping move the team after the first night.
"It was a distraction and upsetting and unfortunate," Roberts said. "This should be a positive for everybody involved. This should be a joyous time for our program and to have kind of a black eye on the experience is unfortunate."
Gonzaga released a statement after Roberts spoke to media.
"We are frustrated and deeply saddened to know what should always be an amazing visitor and championship experience was in any way compromised by this situation for it in no way reflects the values, standards and beliefs to which we at Gonzaga University hold ourselves accountable," the statement said.
