Tulane coach Ron Hunter addresses X posts suggesting he's leaving for North Texas. Tulane coach Ron Hunter addresses X posts suggesting he’s leaving for North Texas. (@GreenWaveMBB, @soitstexas, and @TyroneBillyJ on X.)
College BasketballTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

There’s been quite a bit of discussion of fake reports and fake reporters around this college basketball season.

That came up with noted troll Rob Reinhart’s fake reports on Dan Hurley and Richard Pitino. And Wednesday and Thursday saw a lot of chatter about Tulane men’s basketball coach Ron Hunter departing for North Texas (whose coach Ross Hodge just left for West Virginia), with particular attention paid to X posts Wednesday from “Tyrone Billy Johnson” (@tyronebillyj, an apparent reference to former NCAA/NFL player Tyron Billy-Johnson) and “Jon Rothstien” (@sohowistexas, using the avatar and a slight misspelling of the name of CBS insider Jon Rothstein, and using the wrong “its”):

Both of those posts look like pretty obvious satire, and there didn’t appear to be any actual reporting suggesting Hunter’s imminent departure at the time of that “Rothstien” post. But it got more than 60 reposts and more than 500 likes, and it seemed to be a likely candidate for what led to actual reporter Dick “Hoops” Weiss posting Wednesday night this was indeed happening:

That then got picked up by a lot of other people, including Fox Sports announcer Tim Brando (who will be calling the Fox-run College Basketball Crown tournament Tulane is in next week, although not their first-round game):

And this all led to the Tulane basketball account putting out a video from Hunter denying the rumors:

“Hello, Tulane fans, it’s Coach Ron Hunter. As we’re getting ready for practice for next week’s Crown tournament, we’re really excited about next week, we’re also excited about some of the recruits we’ve got coming in for next season. Things are just going to be great. Don’t read all the bad stuff that’s out there. I can’t wait to coach this team next week and next season. Roll Wave.”

Of course, Hunter doesn’t specifically cite what “bad stuff that’s out there” that he’s referencing. And it is conceivable that Weiss’ report was original reporting rather than a reference to what he saw spreading from “Jon Rothstien” or “Tyrone Billy Johnson,” and it’s perhaps mildly conceivable that Hunter could still somehow leave the Wave for the newly-vacant job at AAC rival North Texas. Coaches have followed denials with exits in the past, and Tulane has seen several notable figures exit for other jobs in the last few years, including football coach Willie Fritz (to Houston) and AD Troy Dannen (to Washington; he’s now at Nebraska).

But, as of Thursday afternoon, the key to the spread of this “bad stuff” that necessitated an official response seemed to be a post from “Jon Rothstien” at @sohowistexas. That adds to what we’ve seen lately from “Reinhart,” and what we’ve seen in the past from “Richard G. West,” “Simon Charles,” the admittedly-satirical and yet still–cited Ballsack Sports, NBA Centel, and more. And it’s unlikely to be the last case of this we see, especially in an era where X offers monetary rewards for engagement. That poses a tough call for teams, coaches and broadcasters: when is it worth trying to shoot down the fake news, and when does that just draw more attention to it?

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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