Liberty honor boys hoops team that was DQ’d for using girl

NEW YORK (AP) — Kymora Johnson just wanted to play basketball.

The 10-year-old girl was thrown into the spotlight earlier this month when her youth team from Virginia was disqualified from a basketball tournament because she played in it. Johnson’s the lone girl on the boys’ team, the Charlottesville Cavaliers. The tournament had a rule, put in place this year, that girls couldn’t play on a boys’ team because there was also a girls’ competition. Johnson had been playing with the Cavaliers for the last few years because there was no girls’ team in her area until recently.

After the Cavaliers were disqualified from the tournament in South Carolina, her teammates came to watch the semifinals in pink uniforms in a sign of support for Johnson.

When the WNBA’s New York Liberty heard the story, they wanted to do something for Johnson and her teammates. So they brought the Cavaliers to Saturday night’s game.