Rutgers women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer didn't like it when Don Imus and his producer called her players rude and racially insensitive names after the NCAA Women's Final Four. She didn't like hearing Isiah Thomas defending the use of similar language, either.

"It's disgusting. You know, I turned the dog-gone set off. I thought 'has he lost his mind,' honestly," Stringer told ESPN's Doris Burke of her reaction to comments Thomas made in a videotaped deposition for a sexual harassment lawsuit against him and the owners of the New York Knicks.

Thomas replied Friday, urging Stringer to "get the facts'' about what he said.

"I'm not sure what she said, but if she would like to hear the facts and not the edited portion of what I supposedly said, I'm not hard to find,'' he said after the Knicks' preseason loss to New Jersey. "It's easy to get what I said. So don't speak from ignorance, get the facts about what I said and not the portion that was taken out of context.''

In the deposition, made public during the trial, Thomas suggested he would be more troubled hearing a white man calling a black woman a "bitch" than if a black man said the same thing.

Later, during the trial and in comments to reporters, Thomas said degrading a woman in such a manner "is never OK."

But Stringer had already heard enough.

"You want to know what I really felt? It was disgusting. What does he think?" Stringer said. "This was a woman first. He has no right to put her down, and then think it's OK for me to put her down but it's not alright for a white man to put her down. What are you talking about? She is a human being and as a female, and in particular as a black female, I took tremendous offense to that.

It was disgusting. What does he think? This was a woman first. He has no right to put her down, and then think it's OK for me to put her down but it's not alright for a white man to put her down.

-- C. Vivian Stringer

Thomas has repeatedly said the portion of tape played in court misrepresented his opinion, and he urged Stringer to get that before commenting further.

Stringer found herself in the center of a national debate on race, sexism and civility when, a few days after the national championship game, Imus and his producer made racist and sexist remarks about the Rutgers women, with Imus calling the team "nappy-headed hos." They were later fired.

Stringer and her team, which accepted Imus' apology, have been looking to put the controversy behind them and get down to the business of basketball.

"I just wish people would say Rutgers, the national runner-up, and leave it at that," Stringer said at Big East media day Thursday.

The Knicks have stressed that Thomas in his deposition never said it was OK for anyone to call a woman a bitch, just that it was worse for a white male to call a black woman bitch for racial reasons.

When asked during testimony if it matters if a white man uses the term toward a black woman, Thomas responded: "That compounds the issue because now you have perceived racial undertones to that if a white male is referring to a black female using that word.''

When asked if it was ever "OK in your belief for any man, no matter what his race, creed or color, to refer to a woman as a bitch?'' Thomas responded: "It is never OK, it is never acceptable, and it's always inappropriate, and I said that in my deposition.''

A federal jury ruled Thomas and Madison Square Garden were liable for harassing former Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders and ordered MSG to pay her $11 million in damages. Both Thomas and MSG said they would appeal.

Doris Burke cover's men's and women's college basketball and pro basketball for ESPN.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.