Why are college coaches so against Twitter lately? Tom Izzo basically blamed it for the Marcus Smart incident, and now Minnesota coach Richard Pitino went on a strange mini-rant about the service:
“Twitter is anti-team in my opinion, it really is” Richard Pitino said.
“I think it’s changed the whole game in all of sports, for a lot of wrong reasons. It’s not good for us, for any of them. It’s not healthy to have one player with 5,000 followers and another player with 800 followers. It’s not healthy that they go to their phones all the time, looking for their mentions. I understand that for you guys it’s a vehicle and you need to do it, but I don’t like it one bit. I understand it, but I don’t like it. I think it creates a feeling that one guy is a celebrity.”
What in the world is he talking about? Certain players were more popular and famous than others long before Twitter existed. Personally, I feel that coaches just have found an easy scapegoat to blame for their players being distracted. You would think that being 31, Coach Pitino would understand a bit but instead he comes off as another “get off my lawn” coach.