I hadn’t thought about this angle before. After Marcus Smart pushed Jeff Orr the Texas Tech superfan, everyone seemed to have an opinion on the matter. Tom Izzo has his own unique thought on whats to blame. Social media:
“I’m a social media basher. I hate it,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question that everything’s changed in the last three years because kids are going into these events — you never get away from it — you go there and you get chewed on and that’s normal and you can take that and you get on the bus and you get chewed on by their fans or your fans. Telling a kid not to read it, is telling a kid not to breathe.
“I think it’s created a whole new problem,” he added. “I don’t think fans are much different than they were, except maybe they’re so ignorant on Twitter, that now they figure they can do a little more face-to-face. But most love hiding behind a keyboard. I think the buildup, if you read anything into this it talked about how he was getting killed on Twitter. That pressure got to him. ‘Cause that kid’s a helluva kid, I know him a little bit myself. Uncharacteristic of him.”
Well ok then.
While I believe social media can be bad for players sometimes, I think this is a pretty big stretch.
