A heated national controversy over a transgender athlete on the San Jose State women’s volleyball team could be the catalyst for a conference title in the upcoming Mountain West Conference tournament.
The tournament is scheduled to begin Nov. 27, and San Jose State is the No. 4 seed. A conference spokesperson told Fox News Digital the conference is preparing a plan in the event teams in the tournament refuse to face San Jose State amid the controversy.
That plan includes the conference’s willingness to recognize San Jose State as the Mountain West champion if it reaches the final and the other team in the final forfeits and refuses to play, as conference rules state, the spokesperson confirmed. If that situation does play out, it would also grant San Jose State an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament.
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San Jose State University Spartans head coach Todd Kress speaks with reporters after a loss in an NCAA Mountain West women’s volleyball game against the Colorado State University Rams in Fort Collins, Colo., Oct. 3, 2024. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
The decision to forfeit would be left up to the team that would face San Jose State. If the Spartans’ opponents make the decision to forfeit, then San Jose State would have to be declared champion.
“If we get to a championship game, and it’s San Jose State vs. whoever, if that institution forfeits the game, then San Jose State wins that match, and then they are tournament champions. And they would be the automatic qualifier out of the Mountain West,” the spokesperson said.
However, that current system could change very quickly, pending a hearing Thursday.
An emergency hearing has been scheduled for Thursday in Denver. A judge will determine whether to grant an injunction that seeks to disqualify San Jose State from competing in the conference tournament, disqualify Blaire Fleming from competing in the conference tournament and/or remove losses from the records of teams who protested by not competing against SJSU.
The conference spokesperson confirmed the conference could have to discard its plan pending the outcome of the hearing.
San Jose State finished the regular season with a 14-5 record and a 12-5 conference record. Seven of its wins and six of its conference wins came via forfeit by opposing teams amid the controversy.
San Jose State player Brooke Slusser has joined one lawsuit against the NCAA and filed another alongside other Mountain West players against the conference over the alleged presence of her transgender teammate, Blaire Fleming. Slusser has alleged the school deliberately hid Fleming’s natural birth sex from her and other players on the team and around the conference.
Slusser previously told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview she and her teammates are unsure about what a potential postseason run might look like as they navigate a demoralized locker room.
“We’re just mostly wondering are teams even gonna play us, period, if we go there? Because of just everything that’s happened this season,” Slusser said. “It seems like every few days it looks like It’ll be a fine day and everything’s normal and then something else happens. So, I truly do think everyone’s just kind of taking things day by day and taking the punches as they come.”
San Jose State head volleyball coach Todd Kress has suggested the tension in the locker room may be not be “a bad thing” as the team looks to compete for a championship.
“Sometimes tension is not necessarily a bad thing, and I’m not saying that there is. But, you know, when you do have tension or you do have confrontations, I mean, I’m a person that believes that, from confrontation, good things usually happen. We settle our differences, and we work through it,” Kress told reporters Oct. 3.
After news of the lawsuit and allegations against Fleming began to circulate, San Jose State was dealt several forfeits, including from conference opponents Boise State, Utah State, Wyoming and Nevada. Wyoming and Boise State have each forfeited two matches against the Spartans.
Utah State and Boise State are in the tournament picture and could be potential opponents for San Jose State in Las Vegas. They have already taken losses. Boise State accepted two losses after refusing to face Fleming earlier in the season.
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Fleming has been one of the top players in the conference and an offensive anchor for San Jose State this season, even amid the controversy. Fleming is third in the conference in average kills per serve with 3.86 and amassed 297 total kills on the year despite playing seven fewer games than expected due to the forfeits. It’s helped give San Jose State the third best hitting percentage in the Mountain West.
Slusser alleged in her lawsuit that Fleming’s spikes travel more than 80 mph.
“Brooke estimates that Fleming’s spikes were traveling upward of 80 mph, which was faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball,” Slusser’s complaint states. “The girls were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but still could not fully protect themselves.”
Fleming previously set a single-match record at John Champe High School with 30 kills in a match and a single-season record of 266 kills for the school’s girls volleyball team. Footage from the athlete’s Hudl page of the school-record 30-kill match in September 2019 shows how hard and fast Fleming’s spikes came down at the high school level against female opponents.
President-elect Trump went out of his way to comment about footage of one of Fleming’s plays in which the player spiked a ball at San Diego State player Keira Herron in a match earlier this season.
“I saw the slam. It was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall. “But other people, even in volleyball, they’ve been permanently — I mean, they’ve been really hurt badly. Women playing men.”
San Jose State’s team has had no reservations about making Fleming the centerpiece of the offense amid the ongoing controversy. The team mobbed Fleming in celebration after a game-winning service ace against rival Colorado State in their senior day match Nov. 16.
San Jose State has repeatedly defended the presence of Fleming on the team.
“Our athletes all comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations. Our volleyball team members have earned the right to compete, and we are deeply disappointed for them and with them that they are being denied those opportunities through cancellations and forfeits. We are also proud of how they have persevered through these challenges on the court,” a statement provided to Fox News Digital by a university spokesperson said.
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