MURRAY, Ky. — The mother of a Murray State basketball player, whose team plays in the first round of the NCAA tournament this week, has died in a car crash in Nashville.

Freeda Simmons died around 7:30 a.m. CDT Monday. The Tennessean reports Simmons, a nurse at Vanderbilt University, was injured a couple of hours earlier when an Allied Waste Services truck lost its trailer, setting off a chain-reaction crash.
Murray State spokesman Dave Winder told The Associated Press that Simmons’ son, Picasso Simmons, is planning to go to the Racers’ game Thursday against Vanderbilt. The Murray team is leaving Tuesday for San Jose, Calif., where the NCAA West Regional game will be held.
Winder says Simmons’ mother, who ran track and field at Murray in the early 1980s, had been happy her son was going to the tournament and that he wanted to honor her by going with the team.