This Week in the Twitterverse

Programming Note

For the sake of helping to bring all the good stuff to the fore, we're going to start using the hashtag #MGoTWIT. If you see anything particularly noteworthy (or, more realistically, scornworthy), tag it with that hashtag and the internet hamsters will stop by to collect it. As always, feel free to send any TWIT-worthy content to @Bry_Mac.

Hoosier (Can No Longer Become a) Daddy

On Tuesday night, Michigan State faced off with Indiana in East Lansing. It was a matchup of Top 5 teams with serious implications for the Big Ten regular season title, as well as NCAA seeding and the overall future of mankind. Blah blah blah LET'S TALK ABOUT THE GROIN-PUNCH. Late in the 4th quarter, Cody Zeller threw an elbow to the nether-region of Derrick Nix en route to the bucket. Nix was displeased because, and I quote, "mmmmmnnnnnggggguuuuurrggggggghhhh [/labored breathing]." So shortly thereafter when Nix was defending Zeller in the post, this happened:

Congratulations Cody Zeller, you have joined the same exclusive club as Brian Cook's soul, Corey Liuget, and 80% of America's Funniest Home Videos participants. The video evidence is pretty damning, so let's consider how Sparty might respond:

DOOR NUMBER ONE: Blame the victim

Some believe that Zeller did this to himself; he pulled Nix's hand into his own manflesh in an attempt to draw a foul. [ED-S: Must include gif:

]

This is an interesting take on the classic "quit hitting yourself" employed by older brothers everywhere, but I'm not sure I buy it. For one thing, that's not a very effective way to draw a flagrant call; it's just too difficult to expect a ref to see that. Moreover, can anyone point to any time ever that someone hit himself in the dangly bits? Have you ever encountered a moment in your life when you thought to yourself, "if I can just rack myself in the huevos right now, everything will work out." The theory doesn't pass the smell test, and I think this is one of those situations where slow motion muddies the water a bit; remember when Michigan fans were all saying that Watford shoved GRIII's arm when GRIII decked Hulls, but a better angle showed that to be inaccurate? I think this is that. But I suppose the video COULD (through bleary, homer-tastic eyes) support that theory. So let's look at...

[After the thing where you do the JUMPING]

DOOR NUMBER TWO: It wasn't THAT bad

The theory is, "sure, he MAY have been popped in the potatoes, but it wasn't that bad; Zeller just flopped on contact." And I can see this argument coming from the women out there who are unfamiliar with this particular field, but speaking on behalf of the men (and statistically speaking, if you are reading this article you are male) this is a tough sell. Remember that time your 4-year-old niece cracked you in the jingle bells? Do you remember how you reacted? Now imagine your 4-year-old niece is Derrick Nix (I believe this to the be the first time that sentence has ever existed). Besides, any guy will tell you that for initial reaction purposes it doesn't matter how hard you get hit. Your first reaction is pure instinct; stick butt out, make the face from Munch's "The Scream," grab self with both hands, fall over. Hans Moleman demonstrates the proper form here.

DOOR NUMBER THREE: You're goddamn right I ordered the Code Red.

A small but bold group picture Nix as Col. Nathan R. Jessup:

Son we live in a world that has centers and those centers have to be guarded by guys with giant posteriors. Who's gonna do it, you? You, Jordan Hulls? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Zeller and you curse the nut-tap. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that while Zeller's reaux chambeaux, while tragic, probably saved buckets. And my post presence, while lumbering and violative of the man-code to you, saves buckets. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about on message boards, you WANT me on those balls. You NEED me on those balls.

So let's see where Sparty goes with this. Will it be Door #1, Door #2, or... oh, damnit, you're going with the Mystery Box aren't you.

(h/t @thesnews)

(h/t Charlie Murphy)

Sure it cost them three couches and a dumpster, but can you blame them? After all, who could resist the call of the Mystery Box?

Yo, David, Can I Borrow Your Panic Button?

I think I’ve figured out how Brady Hoke and Co. are recruiting so well. I imagine a number of conversations going something like this:

Son, what if I told you you could make hundreds… nay, thousands… of grown men flip sh*t at your whim? Sounds like fun, right? Well, commit to play for us, and I will give you this magic wand that will allow you to cause a freak-out whenever you feel like it. Heck, there's even a competition every year to see who can cause the biggest kerfluffle with the least effort. Last year's winner was David Dawson, who sent MGoBlog into a tizzy for three days by tweeting a frowny face.

Case in point: last week Michael Ferns tweeted that he had a little surprise:

…which of course prompted not one but two 175+ comment threads on this here weblog and countless tweets. People both here and on Twitter came up with pretty much every guess possible, including a new commit, new facilities, new jerseys, a new commit, a night game, a new non-conference opponent, a new conference member, a new commit, Devin Gardner’s redshirt, a new commit, or a new commit. All of these made perfect sense, of course, because if Georgia Tech was joining the Big Ten, the guy to announce it would be a high school junior.

By now everyone knows about Ferns’ #Project135… but maybe his surprise is that he’s making T-shirts AND THERE IS A NEW COMMIT???

Northwestern Does Technology Things

Wednesday was Social Media Day for Northwestern basketball as they took on Wisconsin. Northwestern had a bunch of social media-related tie-ins, such as encouraging people to follow the basketball team's Twitter account (@NUMensBball), encouraging people to visit their Facebook page, and encouraging people to use their hashtag and to mention them on Instagram. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "gee, this sounds a lot like every event held by every team, corporation, organization, and girl scout troop everywhere since like 2008." And you'd be right, but there were two things that made this night totally different and social media-y. The first is that Northwestern placed a hashtag on the ball:

Northwestern is full of some pretty bright people, but it seems that no one though to himself, "gee, I wonder if anyone will even be able to see this tiny little hashtag on the fastest moving and most rapidly rotating thing in the entire sport." That's kinda like selling ad space on the side walls of a NASCAR tire, though they didn't have a lot of other options because the NCAA frowns on jersey hashtags and only a monster would mess with the resplendent Grimace portrait that is the floor of Welsh-Ryan Arena.

It's the other special tie-in, though, that makes Peggy sad. Billed as a Networking Night, Northwestern held an event featuring "ESPN Sports Business Reporter and Northwestern alum" Darren Rovell's presentation entitled "Standing Out in the Digital Crowd." And if nothing else, Darren Rovell does know how to stand out in the digital crowd by finding the quantifiable financial angle in all things (or, as one recent article put it, by "commodify the human experience"), usually in a manner that fails to recognize the concept of a "bigger picture." To wit:

Yup, Darren, that was the takeaway from that event. Did you ever wonder why you don't hear reporters at murder trials calling out to the defendant, "WHO ARE YOU WEARING? YOU LOOK FABULOUS!!!" Rovell has been following the plight of Pistorus’ sponsors closely in the past week, which is important because like most people I am gravely concerned about the effect of this young woman’s death on Nike.

Deep Thoughts with Jose Canseco

Not to be a downer, but I need to take a moment and address two serious issues. The first is meteors, or at least what so-called 'scientists' want you to believe about meteors (reminder: tweets appear in reverse-chronological order, so read from the bottom for full wisdom):

The second, of course, is the truth about gravity.

Everyone laughed when Canseco was all "everyone is on steroids." But who's laughing now? Not the dinosaurs, that's for damn sure.