Had a great time at the 10th Annual @lutzie43 Invitational! Appreciate Mike Lutzenkirchen for having me and @rhettlashlee! It’s always an honor to help carry on Philip’s legacy.
The only thing embarrassing is that they let you keep talking as long as they did. I’m genuinely shocked that people who cover sports or claim to can give takes like this with their whole chest and a straight face. At some point hot takes for attention aren’t funny and DO NOT encourage the kind of discourse around college athletics that we need in an era where everyone is crying about money “ruining” the game. A group of players deciding as a team they did not want losing to be the last thing their year’s team is remembered for is not “embarrassing” at all. Quite the contrary.
Now that Auburn has won the NIT, I’d challenge Ryan to come back to the table and explain how the program and the players would’ve have been better served by NOT winning those five extra games and just sitting at home stewing on just missing the big dance.
His whole point about having video of a half empty arena is too foolish to address beyond just stating that it’s foolish. Auburn fans showed up all season and getting to see their team win 5 more games was in NO WAY detrimental to the program, players, fans, or a first year head coach. If anything they got a chance to gel more as a team and instill some hope that if they keep their core together they won’t come up short next time. C’mon Ryan….You can do better than this.