Vucevic apologizes for saying team ‘played like women’

Junior forward Nikola Vucevic was USC’s leading scorer Saturday against Arizona with 18 points, but that’s not the only reason he made the news.

The 6-foot-10 junior told reporters after the game that he was disappointed in USC’s 82-73 loss in Tucson, saying he thought the team “played like women.”

“We didn’t play hard at all. Every single one of us just played like women,” Vucevic said.

On Sunday, Vucevic apologized for his comments, according to the Orange County Register, saying he had the “utmost response” for female athletes.

“I didn’t mean to offend anybody,” he said in a phone interview. “It sounds bad. If somebody got offended, I apologize.”

He explained that he meant to say USC “played soft,” a phrase that didn’t translate from Serbian — the Montenegro native’s first language — to English.

“I respect women’s sports as much as men’s sports. Our women’s team is doing a great job. I respect them, I watch them and I’m good friends with them,” Vucevic said in the same story. “That [disrespecting women] is the last thing I would do.”

Vucevic’s mother was a star on the Sarajevo club basketball team Zeljeznicar in the 1970s, and also was a standout on the Yugoslavian national team. His girlfriend also plays volleyball in Montenegro, the Register said.

USC coach Kevin O’Neill said Vucevic’s comments were not representative of his character.

“He’s one of the most sensitive, good guys there is. I think he said it without thinking, and I know for a fact he regrets it very much,” O’Neill said. “What he said wasn’t what he intended, but obviously it wasn’t the right thing to say.”

“He’d be the last guy who’d be disrespectful to women, or anybody for that matter.”