An Open Letter to Marshall University Basketball

Editors Note: We were sent this open letter yesterday evening from our pal @FakeBobHuggins. Bob wanted an outlet to get something off his chest, and naturally we obliged. We don’t want to fall victim to the treadmill.

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Look. I get it.

It’s Dan D’Antoni’s schtick. He of ‘’they’re afraid of us’. He of ‘not sure if WVU plays as hard as Newberry College.’ He of ‘I coach Marshall University where West Virginians play.’ Dan clearly doesn’t appreciate Marshall being in the shadow of WVU (it doesn’t take Freud to figure out why he may be sensitive to being thought of as the lesser successful brother) and he makes it a point to run his mouth whenever he can.

We thought after a 23 point loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament that you might shut your trap just a bit.

We were wrong.

You had a nice ring ceremony and, honestly, I was prepared to be happy for you. D’Antoni’s three point shooting and damn analytics offense is working well for you, and a second round NCAA appearance at your first tournament in years is something of which you should be proud.

And then you have to go and tweet something like this.

(First we really don’t need to spend time debating if this was aimed at WVU, right? There’s only one other Div 1 team in WV, this was unquestionably directed 205.9 miles to your northeast.)

So you’re going to try to shade WVU in the same year they beat your behinds on the most neutral of courts?

Thanks to Twitter’s dumb algorithm no one asked for, I saw this tweet the next day because someone I follow favorited a quote tweeted response. I took exception to said tweet:

A few hours later, I see Marshall has replied with this

So what are you arguing, Marshall? That you have the last laugh? How do you figure? Because all I see now is someone content to alienate allies and ignore facts.

Fewer and fewer West Virginians are able to support WVU AND Marshall, and that’s because of $#%& like this, Marshall! You won’t let them! Sure, it’s great now, and if you have a successful run of a few years of tourneys, you can laugh at the haters. But, trust me, when the down year comes—and it will--you’ll be looking for friends. And you won’t find any from those wearing gold and blue, because of this.

I’d tell you to act like you’ve been there, but well…