If you have to leave, do it with style.
That’s how Arike Ogunbowale approached her late-game ejection on Tuesday night when the Dallas Wings guard smiled, pumped up the hometown crowd, and even signed an autograph for a fan on her way off the court.
Ogunbowale, 26, was ejected from the Wings’ 85-73 win over the Atlanta Dream after she received two technical fouls while sitting on the bench late in the fourth quarter.
On her way off College Park Center court, the Arlington, Texas, fans loudly applauded Ogunbowale. And when the 5-foot-8 point guard stopped to cheerfully autograph a T-shirt one Wings fan was holding out over the tunnel, the crowd erupted even louder and the television announcers on Bally Sports Southwest cracked up with laughter.
It wasn’t clear what led to the two-time WNBA All Star’s ejection, and she joked on social media afterwards that she wanted to comment on what happened, but she’d risk getting fined.
“I wish I could say more but I ain’t tryna lose no mo money,” the WNBA star tweeted with a crying laughing emoji. “Great win tho!”
Referees gave Ogunbowale a rare “double technical” foul with 1:42 left in the game. At the time of the infraction, the guard was sitting on the team’s bench and wearing her warm-up uniform after coming out of the game for what appeared to be the final time. Ogunbowale finished the game with 21 points.
But it was her performance on the way off the court that gained her peers’ attention on social media afterwards. “Not you hyping up the crowd!!” former Chicago Sky star Isabelle Harrison joked in a tweet. “Plsss Rike.”
Ogunbowale was far from the only player who received a technical foul Tuesday night. The contest between Dallas and Atlanta set the WNBA record for most technical fouls in a game with 10 being handed out.
“I definitely have never seen anything like it,” Dallas coach Latricia Trammell told reporters after the game, according to ESPN.
In the team’s post-game press conference, Ogunbowale said everyone — not just players — need to “control their emotions” better.
“I don’t know how much I can even say,” she said. “I just feel like all around from top to bottom, coaches, refs, I don’t know, everybody just needs to be able to control their emotions. Everybody’s going to be emotional in the game, and I just feel like everybody’s got to learn how to control their emotions.”