By Anthony Cornwell Jr.

On February 8, 2014 near the end of a game, Oklahoma State, Marcus Smart, shoved Texas Tech fan, Jeff Orr, after reported hearing a racial slur.

Kelly Hines, beat writer for Oklahoma State University’s basketball team, was the first reporter on ESPN to address the issue of Marcus Smart’s incident.

Hines was in shock to the incident reporting that “Smart is a very nice guy, answers any question you asks him, and answers with yes ma’am no ma’am.

Seth Greenberg, ESPN College Basketball analyst, said that officials did a terrible job. “Marcus Smart should have been ejected . . . the fan [Orr] should be held accountable as well” he said. “The image that he created in the past month has hurt his draft stock and has even put his coach’s job in jeopardy.”

In the past month, Smart has been accused of flopping during games and also kicking a chair on the sideline in a game against West Virginia.

ESPN brought up ideas about having more security on the baselines or to move the fans back a few rows. This way when a player goes into the stands, it prevents these kinds of incidents.

Jay Bilas, another ESPN College Basketball analyst, was the first to report that Marcus Smart had been called the N word. Bilas also disagrees with ESPN and fellow colleague Greenberg.
“He was in the stands because he was trying to make a play . . . kicking a chair against West Virginia has no ties to this incident” Bilas said.

Each analyst/reporter that commented on this incident this week did a great job being unbiased. As more information was revealed during the week the analysts seemed to agree that Orr should be dealt with and Smart should be suspended.

It’s instances like these that show how the media is getting better with situations like this.