Josh Harrellson
Now another UK player has gotten into Twitter trouble.
Only this time, the player has been kicked off Twitter, for the time being.
Yes, as John Calipari tweeted a bit earlier, Josh Harrellson has been put on Twitter suspension.
Harrellson complained via Twitter for not getting a Calipari copliment after his 26-rebound performance in the Blue-White Scrimmage.
Hat tip to blog reader UK Boo, who reports that Harrellson tweeted:
“Either we are the worst offensive rebounding team or he had gotten better”!!! Just amazing to me I can’t get a good job or way to go
yes he has been working hard this off season… It is just amazing to me but I look past it and keep trucking! You can’t stop this train!!!
Now Harrellson’s Twitter account has been shut down.
UKCoachCalipari John Calipari
Please don’t fault Josh. He’s never dealt w/ how to handle success. I promoted him to the 1st team & told the team to applaud his effort.
And then:
UKCoachCalipari John Calipari
I’m looking for consistency in practice, scrimmages & games. He won’t be tweeting until he’s responsible enough to handle success & failure.
I think it’s quite over blown by Josh, Cal and us. It’s nothing more than another misdirected post game emotion by what seems to be a really good kid, a quick trigger finger by Cal (who did the same thing as Josh, BTW), and us fans sensationalizing it. I think Joker handled his much better, but that’s just me.
How about this! Get the same amount of rebounds in the reg. season and then we will talk. Maybe ban this crap of twittering period. Josh is the biggest kid on the court , oldest , and probably the stongest, should he not get rebounds against some less filled out younger kids? I think he should , and besides , its A freakin SCRIMMAGE josh , SCRIMMAGE! i played in a pick up game last week and had probably 50 rebs. in 2 hours, who cares? Do it when it counts and the atta boys will be showered upon you!
At least Calipari was consistent in smacking him down with the same snarky backhandedness that ticked Jorts off to begin with.
As I’ve said before, nothing good comes players tweeting anything. There is no upside from high profile college players tweeting. Only neutral stuff or negative stuff. High profile program coaches should just ban them all.
There is a bit of a double standard going on here; By me included. I asked pretty much the same thing as Cal about rebounding on the live blog here last night. But then we see 37 points by Knight and 29 by Jones and we’ve got them with one foot in the NBA next year, if there is one. Yet we discount what Harrelson did. Why? It’s based on everything we know about all three of them. The problem is, we only have one scrimmage to go on for Knight and Jones. The problem, also, is we have two past years to go on for Harrelson. I contend that if this were his first scrimmage, we would all have him in the draft next year as well. The kid rebounded last year. His interior D and drop in production in the paint kept him on the bench last year. Plus, his foot work and movement looked much improved to me. Who are we to say he isn’t a 12 plus rebounder this year? I’m not saying he is but if he wants to be, then I think he should go for it. Given more minutes and the need it very well could be possible. So I think Josh may have a little something to gripe about here, and it’s directed at me as well.
If Cal created a blanket rule that his players couldn’t tweet, a lot of kids would go elsewhere to play. Unlike some of the football players, the basketball team is almost always smart about their tweets. That said, I’ve never seen a football player call out the coaching staff like Josh did. Not smart. He’ll take his medicine for a few days and this will blow over.
“If Cal created a blanket rule that players couldn’t tweet, they’d go elsewhere.” You’re kidding; you HAVE to be kidding. If this is what this world has come to, I think I’ll go read a book. Whatever happened to learning to take things in stride and getting on with life? I agree that Coach Cal’s statement is getting more “play” than it deserves, but big deal. Harrelson isn’t 16 years old; he’s the oldest on the team. And I’m sorry, but getting 26 rebounds in a scrimmage AGAINST MUCH SMALLER people doesn’t mean a whole lot. I applaud his effort, but again, so what? Such nonsense as this is what has made sports so unbearable. If the players haven’t got their drawers in a bunch, the coach isn’t coddling them like they’re 3-year olds at their first birthday party, and if they don’t get INSTANT gratification, everyone’s pee-oed. Absolutely pathetic.
For the record, no I wasn’t kidding. It is college basketball. The inmates have been running the asylum for some time now.
I think athletes should Be allowed to have a twitter or facebook. If you’re going to ban them from that, shouldn’t they be banned from going to any type of bar/club and have a 9:00 curfew every night? I agree with UKBoo on this. We get excited about players like Knight because he was one of the highest rated recruits in the country by the so-called recruiting experts. So there is a lot of excitement about whatever he does. I think Harrellson could have definitely handled this better and used Calipari not complimenting his as motivation. Youl just have to know better than that. But I think they SHOULD BE TREATED AS ADULTS and have facebook or twitter and if they post something not appropriate, be HELD ACCOUNTABLE AS ADULTS. And if it is banned for the team, Coach Calipari being the leader of the team, should delete his account as well since he is part of the team. Furthermore, I think Calipari is kind of quick-triggered like Harrellson with the fact he thought it would be ok to host a fundraiser for the Governor. Guess he didn’t think to consider that a lot of UK fans are Republicans or may not support the Governor until after he announced it. Remember Calipari saying that Gov. Beshear had been really friendly too him since he arrived in Kentucky. Wonder if the Governor was as friendly to Ken McDonald when he arrived especially since Beshear is a UK alum. Just my though on it.
I’m miffed what is the big deal. What is the big deal? Last year John Wall was displeased at one time what coach said about him. But everything turned out great. Which i’m sure all this will. Coaches are always trying to motivate the players.
I stopped going to UK football games in the 90′s. Because every game i went to one i was sitting by some young kid that always knew what the coaches could do better. problem is he was sitting in the stands with me. who knows he mght have played at highlands or boyle county. but where was he? with me in the stands.
so i guess what i’m trying to say. have you played basketball ay UK? have you coached basketball at UK? what makes everyone an expert? i’m just happy to have what we have after a long wait.
who cares if it is a scrimmage or not. the fact of the matter is that all of these players including harrellson work their butts off to get where they are and do all that they do. would it hurt anybody or a coach to say good job. why not give your players the posotive they need as well as the negative. GOOD JOB HARRELLSON!!!!!
and another thing… who cares how much smaller people are? that has nothing to do with the fact that a player wants a little acknowledgment that he has done a good job. what is the big deal with that? If you dont play college basketball then you dont know what it is like to play against anybody whether bigger or smaller. the smaller ones have tallent to and just because you are bigger doesnt mean anything. are you 6’11? Do you know what that is like?