What does a college basketball player do when he’s been benched in the second half of a game after putting on a lack-lustered performance?
Playing with a cell phone doesn’t cross your mind first, does it?
But that’s what freshman guard Justin Combs did the other night and he was suspended indefinitely for violating team rules.
Head coach Tom Herrion and school officials didn’t give a specific reason for the suspension but Pierce Greenberg of The Mid-Majority have an idea of why he was suspended.
Coleman played in the first half, logged a couple points and a foul or two before being sent to the bench with around six minutes left. But as Belmont closed the half up 37-25, Coleman slowly meandered off the court, far behind his teammates who jogged to the locker room. In fact, an assistant coach (perhaps a graduate assistant) ran back on to the court and ushered Coleman to pick up the pace.
As the second half commenced, Coleman started it behind the bench. Not on the bench, behind the bench and the coaches, far away from the nearest action. Then, I saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen at any level of sport. Coleman slyly slipped a cell phone out of the sleeve of his warm-ups and proceeded to look at it for most of the second half.
Yes, a player that STARTED and participated in a game, spent the entire second half doodling on his phone like a teenage girl at the movie theater. I could hardly take my eyes off of it, refusing to believe what I saw. It was so sophomoric, so appalling.
I laughed when I heard this story. Coleman pretty much acted like a spoil brat who was told he can’t play outside, then locks himself in his room and color in his coloring book and ignores everyone for the rest of the day.
Coleman needs to grow. If he was doing what he was suppose to be doing on the court then he wouldn’t have been bench. Now he is benched permanently for acting like a brat.
Hope he learned his lesson.