Courtside fashion is no longer defined by celebrities slinging Birkins on the hardwood floor; these days, it’s all about the coaches. Over the past few seasons of women’s college basketball, more and more coaches have upped their fashion game. We’ve seen Sydney Carter strategizing in everything from red latex to feathered fringe, Dawn Staley rallying her team in bedazzled Gucci, and Niele Ivey slaying the sidelines in an exquisitely tailored Alexander McQueen suit. But not everyone is happy about it.

To us, it’s empowering to see so many fashionable women crushing it on the court, exuding confidence and proving that women are multi-faceted. But if there’s one thing the internet hates, it’s confident women. Some call the bold outfits disrespectful, saying they detract attention from the team and the larger task at hand. “Ridiculous, it’s a ballgame not a friggin fashion show,” one such person writes on Carter’s Instagram page. “The outfit is great. Just more for going out to a bar. Not coaching a college basketball team,” another says. Well-dressed women angering faceless commenters? Color us surprised.

“My confidence offended people,” Carter said on an episode of “Way Up With Angela Yee” in response to this ongoing outfit criticism. “It surprised me because at the end of the day I was just doing my job. I can’t help that I’m curvy, I can’t help that I like to dress a certain way, and I’ve never been inappropriate.”

“My confidence offended people.”

Another important note: much of this fashion backlash is directed at women of color. Instead of simply stating it’s not something they’d personally wear, onlookers clutch their pearls at these women’s form-fitting clothing, calling even designer brands “classless” or “inappropriate.” But when white women like Kim Mulkey get away with muppet-core realness and a literal basketball net wrapped around her jacket, we have to wonder . . . what are these people actually saying?

“I just think that people are uncomfortable with a Black woman being in a power position,” Carter told Yahoo Life following some unprecedented uproar over her pink leather pants in 2022. “When you see a Black woman who is actually confident and embracing herself, I think that that’s very intimidating.” Staley discussed this same kind of discomfort in a 2021 interview with GQ. “Everybody else is saying what this Black woman is doing and they ain’t comfortable,” she said. “Everybody’s OK with the norm when it’s white coaches, ’cause that’s all they’ve seen.”

By showing up to work in their personal style, these women coaches show they’re not afraid to take up (well-deserved) space. In other groundbreaking news: a well-styled outfit does not impede one’s ability to do their job . . . not that the haters would know. We’d like to remind everyone that you can express yourself through fashion and still take yourself seriously — these women do it all the time. Embracing your own sense of style might also be a useful avenue for feeling more comfortable in a traditionally male-dominated field.

When it comes to women coaches and their courtside fashion, the only thing we’re upset about is that this year’s March Madness is already coming to an end. Coaches, keep doing your thing, and let the naysayers stay mad about it.

Chandler Plante (she/her) is an assistant health and fitness editor for PS. She has over four years of professional journalism experience, previously working as an editorial assistant for People magazine and contributing to Ladygunn, Millie, and Bustle Digital Group.