Celebrated for calling out double standards, TCU basketball’s Sedona Prince now enjoys them | Opinion
If a men’s college basketball player had the record and “résumé” of TCU’s Sedona Prince, he would be finishing his college career at an NAIA program, or a school in MethPark, Kansas, or playing in Novgorod, Russia, accepting rubles from the oligarch who owns the team to launder money.
At 6-foot-7, Prince is both a walking double-double, and double standard.
She is the player who was celebrated — and justifiably so — for calling out the NCAA for its inequitable treatment of women’s sports when compared to men’s sports, and said, “If you aren’t upset about this problem, then you’re a part of it.”
The double standard she currently enjoys isn’t over something as benign as free weights in a hotel ballroom but rather multiple assault allegations.
Prince is not some dumb kid but rather a 24-year-old woman who is in her seventh year of college, and her third major university. The only reason you may be unaware of Prince’s “extended résumé” is because she plays a sport that, while growing, remains a niche on the sports calendar.
Women’s basketball and those who fight to be treated the “same as the guys” are predictably silent when it comes to Prince. Her case is not a case because this is one of those instances when the lazy tag of, “Nobody cares. It’s women’s basketball” fits right between the rows of empty seats.
Why you know Sedona Prince
In 2025, Prince is one of the biggest reasons why TCU is ranked 10th in the latest AP Poll with a shot of reaching the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. Prince has a potential future in the WNBA, or at least the potential to make good money playing overseas.
In 2024, she was one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the NCAA that led to a $2.8 billion settlement that will allow colleges to pay student athletes.
In 2021, Prince was the Oregon player who posted the TikTok video displaying the visual disparity between the treatment by the NCAA for the men’s basketball tournament and the women. Her viral video of the weight rooms provided by the NCAA for the women compared to the lavish facilities for the men prompted change.
Also, Prince has a list of disturbing assault allegations alleged by former partners. She has not been charged with any crimes.
Four women have accused Prince of either assault or sexual assault, beginning in 2019. One of her partners filed a lawsuit, in 2022, accusing her of sexual assault, which was later dropped.
The most recent incident was on Jan. 18 when both Prince and her ex-girlfriend, a TCU student, told the TCU Police Department they had been assaulted. The Fort Worth police took over the investigation. According to the police report, the ex-girlfriend said she was strangled by Prince, who said she was punched in the eye.
No charges were filed. Ultimately, police concluded, “The only evidence consistent with both accounts is that there was a physical altercation and both parties sustained minimal injuries.”
This comes six months after a previous girlfriend of Prince, Olivia Stabile, posted TikTok videos detailing alleged abuses by the TCU forward. Prince denied all accusations.
On Feb. 12, The Washington Post published a report that detailed more allegations made by former partners against Prince. These date back to her time as a freshman at the University of Texas in 2019 and during her career at Oregon in 2022, when TCU head coach Mark Campbell was an assistant on the Ducks’ staff.
Via her attorney to The Washington Post, Prince categorically denied all of the allegations. Her attorney, A. Boone Almanza told The Post: “Unfortunately, others have decided to use Sedona as a launch point for their careers. ... In an effort to create some relationship privacy, Sedona has asked girlfriends to sign nondisclosure agreements because their personal, intimate moments should not be the subject of public discussion.”
Almanza told the Star-Telegram of the incident on Jan. 18 that Prince was a “victim of assault” when she was “hit repeatedly” and that his client did not fight back.
He said that Prince denies any allegations regarding the incident on Jan. 18, and that his client was “attacked,” and the incident left her with a black eye.
Campbell, Prince and new TCU athletic director Mike Buddie passed on an opportunity to discuss this issue. Because they can. TCU officials have said they are aware of the allegations, and are looking into the matter.
The Double Standard
Prince has never been suspended by Texas, Oregon or TCU.
If this was a case of a football, or men’s basketball, player, would the player still be on the floor with no consequences in the face of this many lurid accusations?
In December of 2012, the University of Texas was preparing to play in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio when players Case McCoy and Jordan Hicks were accused of sexually assaulting a woman. Neither player was arrested nor charged.
Texas coach Mack Brown suspended both players and sent them home before the game. Less than a month after the accusation, both players were reinstated as no charges were filed.
In December of 2023, the University of Illinois immediately suspended basketball player Terrance Shannon after he was charged with raping a woman in Kansas on Sept. 8. Two weeks after he was suspended, the former Texas Tech player sued the University of Illinois board of trustees to be reinstated to the team.
One month into his suspension, a federal judge ruled that Illinois violated Shannon’s civil rights, and that he should be reinstated to the team. In June, Shannon was found not guilty of all charges stemming from the incident. Earlier this month, the University of Illinois retired his jersey.
In September of 2015, University of Dayton basketball player Dyshawn Pierre was suspended for the first semester by the school after he was accused of sexual assault, stemming from an incident in the spring. Pierre, who denied all accusations, was not charged with a crime, as the prosecutor cited “insufficient evidence.”
At the time of the suspension, he was the Flyers’ leading scorer. He sued the school to be reinstated, which a judge rejected. He returned to the team after the semester was over, and in his first home game received a standing ovation.
In February of 2019, the North Carolina State men’s basketball team suspended guard Eric Lockett after he was charged with assault of a woman, who told ABC11 News in Raleigh/Durham, “I did not want any charges to be pressed on him. ... I just never wanted it to get this far. I didn’t even call the police on him. I didn’t want anyone to be involved in this. It was between me and him.”
The charge was dismissed Feb. 28; his attorney said the video evidence of the incident showed that Lockett was “not an aggressor.“ Lockett was reinstated after a six-game suspension.
“She said-she said” doesn’t move the needle
Despite the many troubling allegations, Prince has been able to play on with no consequence because A) It’s women’s basketball, B) It’s women’s basketball, and C) Same-sex assault allegations, or cases when men are the alleged victims of abuse from a female partner, are taken less seriously than when it’s a man assaulting a woman.
After the Washington Post published its report, the story was not included on ESPN.com’s home page, or its page for women’s college basketball.
On Feb. 7, Prince was named one of the 10 finalists for the Lisa Leslie Award given to the nation’s top college player. On Feb. 19, Campbell was named one of the 15 finalists for the Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year award.
TCU has two regular-season games remaining, and potentially three more in the Big 12 Tournament in what is the most successful season in the program’s history; there is a good chance TCU will be selected to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
At the NCAA Tournament, there may be some national reporter types who spend time on the Prince story. After TCU’s NCAA Tournament is over, like all great college basketball players, Prince will be gone the next day, Campbell will be done with a headache he recruited, and TCU will no longer have to deal with any of this.
According to multiple WNBA officials, Prince’s off-the-court issues will “ding” her pre-draft evaluation; she will have one chance to talk to prospective teams, usually done via Zoom, before the draft. In these glorified job interviews, questions about these allegations will be asked. Her answer will matter.
The bigger knock on Prince is her performance against No. 3 South Carolina, on Dec. 8. Against the Gamecocks, she scored 6 points on 3-of-8 shooting with two rebounds. The most notable thing she did in TCU’s blowout loss was stand in the way of South Carolina’s Ashlyn Watkins’ dunk.
Prince’s seven-year college career is nearly over. She will leave a legacy not forged with Texas, Oregon or TCU but rather as the modern for-hire nomad who was willing to call out the NCAA over double standards, while enjoying the perks created by the indifference those in women’s basketball revile.
As she said, “If you aren’t upset about this problem, then you’re a part of it.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
