Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

College basketball had its Richard Sherman moment Saturday night in Lubbock, Texas, as Oklahoma State superstar Marcus Smart shoved a notable Texas Tech fan named Jeff Orr to spark a flurry of discussion via Twitter. Even if you weren’t watching the Cowboys suffer their fourth consecutive loss, one quick check of your news feed would have immediately brought the story to your attention, along with varying opinions and perspective surrounding the incident. We now know that Smart has been suspended for three games. Below is how the story evolved from the initial reaction up through Sunday’s announcement of Smart’s suspension.

The Initial Reaction

It all started — for me at least — with a Vine of the Smart shove posted by CBSSports.com‘s Matt Norlander:

Wow. Suspension? RT @MattNorlander: Marcus Smart pushes a fan/older man. Video https://t.co/jRczeykegj

— Nick Fasulo (@nickfasuloSBN) February 9, 2014

Within minutes, everyone had responded to the shove.  Some people immediately knew a developing story was afoot. The very first with the trigger was Pat Forde:

Good lord Marcus Smart just lost his mind. Shoved a fan at Texas tech.

— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) February 9, 2014

The subsequent knee-jerk tweets are fascinating to look back on. Certainly nobody is in the wrong, but based on what we learned, these now feel like nascent observations.

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Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

We are now one month in to the college basketball season. What does that mean? It’s probably fair to start making definitive “this team is good, this team is bad” statements… only more eloquently. This week, Twitter was rife with negativity, as the reality of some team’s deficiencies were confirmed in week four.

Texas is Bad, Jaded

Take Texas for example. Sure, the absence of Myck Kybongo is killing this team, but offensively the Longhorns are an absolute mess, and simply plopping an above-average sophomore point guard into the rotation isn’t going to just fix everything. It’s even put the Worldwide Leader in a tenuous situation!

Texas is holding opponents to the lowest FG% in the nation. Georgetown scored 37 pts in their win Friday against Tennessee #nothinghastogive

— Longhorn Network (@LonghornNetwork) December 4, 2012

I can’t imagine people are rushing to get Texas #longhorn network. This hoops team is not great and not fun to watch. #NCAA

— Wally Szczerbiak (@wallyball) December 5, 2012

Texas has 11 turnovers in 13 minutes. They also wish this game was on the Longhorn Network so no one could see it.

— Greg Giombarrese (@ggiombarrese) December 5, 2012

UCLA is Bad Too, And Texas Is Still Bad!

Following that drubbing against Georgetown, the Longhorns were unfortunately back on national television. They could not hide, playing against an equally disappointing UCLA team in Reliant Stadium. Two high-level programs failing miserably to meet preseason expectations makes for an empty football stadium.

Buy a ticket,get the entire section at Reliant!

— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) December 8, 2012

Still sitting here with hundreds of others (dead serious) at Reliant, awaiting tipoff between Texas-UCLA

— Jason King (@JasonKingESPN) December 8, 2012

How bad is Texas? They’ve missed three wide-open layups. How bad is UCLA? They trail Texas by one.

— Jeff Eisenberg (@JeffEisenberg) December 8, 2012

Honestly, I don’t know what’s more embarrassing, a moist basketball court on an aircraft carrier, or crickets.

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Nick Fasulo is an RTC correspondent who writes the column College Basketball By the Tweets, a look at the world of college hoops through the prism of everyone’s favorite social media platform. You can find him on Twitter @nickfasuloSBN.

The concept was exciting, the buildup palpable. Friday, the hard start to the 2012-2013 season, was supposed to be a grand way to officially tip off the new season by building off of last year’s success of playing a game on an aircraft carrier. But this time around, things went horribly wrong. Yeah Kentucky – Maryland was a good watch. Alabama provided a thrilling finish in their victory over a dangerous South Dakota State team. And UConn surprised many with an impressive victory over Michigan State.

But two games had to be canceled. Canceled because they were being played outdoors on an aircraft carrier in humid areas. Marquette – Ohio State (the Carrier Classic)  and Georgetown – Florida (Navy-Marine Corps Classic) were canceled due to excessive condensation on the court, an embarrassing pair of incidents that will likely put an end to this novel idea, or at least make organizers proceed far more cautiously when attempting to schedule a basketball game in a unique setting.

Naturally, fans took those responsible to task on Twitter. We’ll start with those directly affected, as Marquette blog “Paint Touches” was the first to state the obvious:

Bye bye, basketball courts on aircraft carriers. Boeheim and Fisher have to be dreading Sunday.

— Paint Touches (@PaintTouches) November 10, 2012

Just awful RT @zackbrandt: @painttouches spent $2k to get here to watch the game. I am very upset.

— Paint Touches (@PaintTouches) November 10, 2012

Then just under 24 hours later, he dropped some valuable empirical knowledge as San Diego State and Syracuse held their Saturday afternoon shootaround.

Aircraft carriers are for aircrafts RT @agustin_asr: check out view shooters will have when shooting at the west basket twitter.com/Agustin_ASR/st…

— Paint Touches (@PaintTouches) November 10, 2012

And while it seems as though the Orange would have handled the Aztecs if they played indoors, Steve Fisher’s team struggled to get to the rim, relying on perimeter shots that were likely affected by sun and wind.

Meanwhile, Marquette/Ohio State event organizer Morale Entertainment had a major PR crisis on their hands, tweeting out the following to a number of ticked off fans.

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