Pitino bans twitter for players, blames self for players being scared

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GopherLady said:
I've got to agree with Bleed on this one. Even when asking Little Dre about the worst tweets he's received, he listed 2...and one was that someone should punch him in the face...me, being no one, has received 100 times worse tweets, and a ton more often. If you saw a star player regress at a school like KU, where bball was everything, he would be getting thousands of tweets a day. It never makes it right, but we have a very tame fanbase.
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The tweets sent to the FSU football player with all the fumbles against Oregon were just brutal, felt so bad for the kid. I don't think "other schools are worse" is a great excuse for telling Dre he should be punched, but yeah, other schools can be waaaaaay worse.
 

I don't want to bring back my old post again at this time, but the Gophers are now 0-6 in close conference games this year. At one point during the last two years of Tubby's tenure, the Gophers were 3-13 in close conference games during a 1 1/2 year stretch. I am positive that very few, if any, fan bases have gone through a stretch like Gopher fans have over the last few years. For every one tremendous comeback victory (such as at Wisconsin under Tubby) we've seen at least 4 or 5 meltdowns. If what has happened at Minnesota over the past few years would have happened at a lot of other schools, the message boards and Twitter would be so much worse. Remember when Adam Boone basically came back to Minnesota because of the fan base at UNC? The idea that Minnesota fans are cruel or mean is laughable. Sure we have some outliers as any program does, but on the whole people have amazingly nice given what has gone on. I honestly think Pitino and the players have got off really light considering the state of the Big Ten this year.

Free throws: I understand the math behind "free throw percentage doesn't matter", but on a micro level it does. Phil Mackey had a stat on the radio the other day that in the Gophers first 5 close conference losses they shot THIRTY FIVE PERCENT from the free throw line in the last 5 minutes of those games. For anyone that watched those games, you know that a number of those misses came on front ends of 1-1. Players deserve criticism for things like this, it's not little league. It would be nice if the Gophers could get to the line more or hold teams to a lower efg%, but if you haven't done those things then actually making your free throws does matter.

On Pitino this moves seems reactionary very much like his decision to mess with the starting lineup against Iowa (a move that on its own probably cost us a win) and doesn't actually address a problem with his team. The Gophers problem wasn't starting the game, it was finishing them, so changing who starts made little sense and it made less sense to bench Morris coming off a strong performance while keeping King in the lineup coming off an awful game. With the Twitter thing, it's like banning the Internet...how do you enforce that? The issue isn't with what players are tweeting out themselves it's with what a few rogue fans are allegedly tweeting at them. If the players don't Tweet, they very well still might read their @mentions which is the whole source of this alleged problem. I am sure Pitino would like to ban them from reading the comments on Gopher basketball articles in the STrib as well, because those are likely as bad as anything on Twitter. If the Gophers go on a miracle run to salvage season and make the tournament it will have nothing to do with banning Twitter and everything to do with guys playing better defensively and actually executing on offense down the stretch of games.
 

GopherLady said:
I just think about how much hatred I get about the Gophers on my Twitter...I can only imagine what the players get. Hard to build confidence when people are constantly tearing you down.
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Come on. They are athletes. Every game they play, there is a whole school of fans hoping they break a leg. If someone's play is dependent on whether I think they are the next Michael Jordon or I think they smell of elderberries, that's sad. To me, this is a team looking for anyone else to blame but themselves for uninspiring play. I refuse to be blamed for the poor performance of the team. Granted, I don't have a twitter account, but the idea is still absurd.
 

schlegs said:
Does this just seem like a dumb excuse to anyone else... I mean yea people are mean and say things they shouldn't on twitter but if it's really becoming such a problem that coach has to ban it then maybe its more character issues. Who knows maybe I'm just getting older but to me this is weak, which is a perfect explanation of how they've been playing lately.
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McCaffrey did the same thing at Iowa last year after McCabe got into a twitter war with some jerk Iowa fans.
 

Sparlimb said:
To me, this is a team looking for anyone else to blame but themselves for uninspiring play.
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I haven't gotten that impression. I haven't heard a single one of them blame the refs but I've heard numerous ones blame themselves (collectively at leas) after a loss.
 


They dont seem mentally tough at end of games. I guess they arent mentally tough enough to even handle tweets according to coach.
 

Doc1001 said:
They dont seem mentally tough at end of games. I guess they arent mentally tough enough to even handle tweets according to coach.
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They clearly aren't mentally tough enough to consistently handle late close games. But don't draw too many conclusions from the Twitter ban, I think coach is looking for a way to change the story.
 

Sparlimb said:
Come on. They are athletes. Every game they play, there is a whole school of fans hoping they break a leg. If someone's play is dependent on whether I think they are the next Michael Jordon or I think they smell of elderberries, that's sad. To me, this is a team looking for anyone else to blame but themselves for uninspiring play. I refuse to be blamed for the poor performance of the team. Granted, I don't have a twitter account, but the idea is still absurd.
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Exactly. Can't have it both ways. Either you want the fans to be passionate or you don't. If you want a passionate fan base that continues to fill Williams Arena, you better expect all kinds of criticism when things don't go your way. Don't forget, these are the same folks that will drool all over you when you're doing well. So it seems that what they really want is for folks to cheer when they win and then dismiss the fans when things aren't going well. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

This comes with the territory of big-time basketball. To me, this is just a way to place some of the blame on the fan base. Of course there are some fans that go over the line, but that's just the way it is. Doesn't make it right, but it is reality. If Pitino really wants to have a team that can only play when there's no expectations (to borrow his own phrasing), then he's at too high of a level of coaching.
 

cjbfbp said:
I haven't gotten that impression. I haven't heard a single one of them blame the refs but I've heard numerous ones blame themselves (collectively at leas) after a loss.
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And Adidas basketballs. Oh, and loose rims.
 



Unless you are a player, a coach, or a heavy gambler; sports are there for entertainment. If you are not being entertained, why are you here/there?
 

station19 said:
Unless you are a player, a coach, or a heavy gambler; sports are there for entertainment. If you are not being entertained, why are you here/there?
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People find entertainment in complaining, station. If it was only entertaining to cheer then we'd have no sports commentators ragging on the failures of teams and players. The entire sports industry would collapse upon itself and everyone would just sit there and politely cheer.

Listening to someone's dialogue of disgust is half the fun.
 


bleedsmaroonandgold said:
They clearly aren't mentally tough enough to consistently handle late close games. But don't draw too many conclusions from the Twitter ban, I think coach is looking for a way to change the story.
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No doubt that he is looking for a way to change the story. He is looking for anything to change the performance at the end of games. He can't change personnel very much because he doesn't have the back court depth right now. They need to hit a big shot in the clutch and get some positive reinforcement. Once that happens they'll start to relax.
 



tinyarch said:
People find entertainment in complaining, station. If it was only entertaining to cheer then we'd have no sports commentators ragging on the failures of teams and players. The entire sports industry would collapse upon itself and everyone would just sit there and politely cheer.

Listening to someone's dialogue of disgust is half the fun.
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Yes, and when you decide to play big time college sports with million dollar coaches, lucrative national cable TV contracts, and a minimum of about $50 for a very average seat ticket, you're going to get a lot of both positive and negative attention. I don't imagine there is much Twitter traffic discussing St. Olaf's players.
 

BleedGopher said:
+1. Our fan base, this message board and Gopher fans on Twitter are incredibly tame compared to most major college football and basketball programs. In many cases, they aren't even comparable. That doesn't mean a few outliers use some unfortunate language from time to time, but it's nothing compared to most. We are a tame bunch. That doesn't make it right, but having spent a few seasons with the KU program when they were knocked out the first weekend of the NCAA Tourney, and a year when they were the #1 seed in and lost in the Sweet 16...well, and that was before the anonymous days of Twitter.

It's a talking point for Pitino today. I imagine he's getting sick of having to come up with new reasons why we can't close out a close game. This gave him a new talking point for a few minutes with the media.

Beat Nebraska.

Go Gophers!!
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Yep, unlike other fan bases, I have a hard time believing that players have received death threats or have been called the N world regularly which isn't uncommon at all in big time college sports.
 

tinyarch said:
People find entertainment in complaining, station. If it was only entertaining to cheer then we'd have no sports commentators ragging on the failures of teams and players. The entire sports industry would collapse upon itself and everyone would just sit there and politely cheer.

Listening to someone's dialogue of disgust is half the fun.
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You're actually catching on Flatfoot. I'm impressed.
 

Any idiot who tweets a death threat should be reported to local or federal authorities as that's a terroristic threat and should be investigated and prosecuted.

Teenagers commonly get prosecuted now for juvenile threats against fellow students.

Goodness gracious, it's college athletics, a game!

Always terribly disappointing when freedom of expression can't be used responsibly.
 

BOUNDOUTPASSDUNK said:
Any idiot who tweets a death threat should be reported to local or federal authorities as that's a terroristic threat and should be investigated and prosecuted.

Teenagers commonly get prosecuted now for juvenile threats against fellow students.

Goodness gracious, it's college athletics, a game!

Always terribly disappointing when freedom of expression can't be used responsibly.
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Woah woah woah; there was a death threat?
 

Wish there was some way we could incorporate Jerry Kill to help change the mentality of our players. Something tells me he'd be able to change the culture of mental fragility, timidness, and inability to step up to pressure at ends of games if he was able to get involved with the basketball program.
 

GameDay said:
Wish there was some way we could incorporate Jerry Kill to help change the mentality of our players. Something tells me he'd be able to change the culture of mental fragility, timidness, and inability to step up to pressure at ends of games if he was able to get involved with the basketball program.
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Just so long as he doesn't yell.
 

GameDay said:
Wish there was some way we could incorporate Jerry Kill to help change the mentality of our players. Something tells me he'd be able to change the culture of mental fragility, timidness, and inability to step up to pressure at ends of games if he was able to get involved with the basketball program.
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Huh?

Exactly how is JKill the representative for creating a culture of mental toughness??

Did I miss some big bowl game win or something?
 

From Gregg Doyel:

What started as a single drop is starting to trickle, and soon it will pour. Last year Boise State's Chris Petersen was the first college football coach to ban his players from tweeting, but he wasn't the last. He has been joined by South Carolina's Steve Spurrier and Kansas' Turner Gill, and in college basketball by Mississippi State's Rick Stansbury and Villanova's Jay Wright.

And people are appalled. People in my profession, especially.

Me? I'm not appalled. I'm just surprised.

Surprised those coaches didn't do it sooner. Surprised more coaches haven't done it. Surprised this is even a topic for debate.

Other coaches who have banned Twitter at some point: Jimbo Fisher and Mike Leach. I'm not going to investigate any further, I'm just showing that it is not unusual.
 

Pitino is honest and forthright by nature, and he's being honest here, not just making noise. He's not the first coach trying to push all the buttons and is running out of buttons. He knows players need confidence in order to play well, and I think he's seriously soul searching, wondering if what he's been doing has been backfiring.

He's a young coach, and he's in new territory here with frustration and underachieving.
 


Sparlimb said:
Come on. They are athletes. Every game they play, there is a whole school of fans hoping they break a leg. If someone's play is dependent on whether I think they are the next Michael Jordon or I think they smell of elderberries, that's sad. To me, this is a team looking for anyone else to blame but themselves for uninspiring play. I refuse to be blamed for the poor performance of the team. Granted, I don't have a twitter account, but the idea is still absurd.
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Appreciate the Monty Python reference. Was your mother a hamster?
 

GameDay said:
Wish there was some way we could incorporate Jerry Kill to help change the mentality of our players. Something tells me he'd be able to change the culture of mental fragility, timidness, and inability to step up to pressure at ends of games if he was able to get involved with the basketball program.
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Your post reminds me of that Saturday Night Live skit where Coach Ditka could accomplish anything.
 


Gopher Warrior said:
Bleed has it figured out.

So many people take what a coach is saying at face value and gospel. A lot of times it's just words. Many others, it means something else.

In this particular case, I believe Pitino is just worried about focus. His team has taken some mental turds on the court. He believes he can reduce distractions and hopefully improve player focus in certain ways, including getting players off Twitter.

I'd also recommend (a) stop worrying about free throws - it's a non-issue and (b) play your best players (e.g., EE's low minutes represent a coaching error if the goal is to win basketball games).
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You're like Forest Gump on your free throw mantra. You are wrong; LATE GAME free throws are important. Life is like a box of chocolates, Forest GW
 

jamalo said:
You're like Forest Gump on your free throw mantra. You are wrong; LATE GAME free throws are important. Life is like a box of chocolates, Forest GW
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Or Rainman. I don't want to spend the time to tell which because it is such an idiotic statement.
 

It's amazing how much people are overreacting to this. Again, Pitino didn't say we lost games because of Twitter or that he's banning Twitter forever. There's not a lot to lose by having players stop wasting time on Twitter for a bit. Do we really think Twitter is a good thing? It's also not unusual to do what Pitino did. This board is starting to seem like the MN sports media we hate... taking an exaggerated negative slant on something that's really a nonstory.

The exaggerations on here have gotten out of control. I don't care if other fan bases set the bar low. The average MN fan is much older and would hopefully be less immature.
 

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