Minnesota Basketball: Time to Move On From Twitter Video Incident?

Before I begin I want to clearly state two things.

1 - The following is my opinion and my opinion only. This is not a consensus of the TDG staff nor the thoughts of SBN.  These are my opinions. This time I didn't even really run this by anybody else. I'm so rogue like that.

2 - CAVEAT...I could very easily be wrong.  As new evidence or reports some to the surface in the coming days, this editorial could look bad.  These opinions are based on what I know (or believe to be true) at the time of this typing. Should counter-evidence come to light, then I'll freely admit I was wrong and maybe jumped the gun.

With all of that said, I am increasingly coming around to the belief that this entire Twitter Sex Video saga is being dramatically overblown.

Again, I'll start with what we know (I know this is getting repetitive)...

• Date Unknown - Kevin Dorsey, Nate Mason and Dupree McBrayer were involved in the recording of a sexual encounter.  Technically we don't know when this actually occurred.
• Feb 24 - Kevin Dorsey's phone stolen while at the Mall of America
• Feb 27 - In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the video was posted to Dorsey's Twitter account.  It was up for less than an hour, taken down and Dorsey's account was deleted.
• Feb 28 - Dorsey reported his phone to have been stolen while at the Mall of America on the previous Wednesday.  Marcus Fuller's article highlighted that Bloomington Police have confirmed that a report has been filed and there is video evidence of the phone being stolen.
• Feb 28 & Mar 1 - All three players were suspended for the Illinois game and then suspended for the remainder of the season.
• Since then...all hell has broken loose with the local media (and national media to some extent) and all of your favorite Gopher sports message boards. Conjecture, assumptions and conclusions jumped to.
  

So those are the facts and I'm going to make just a couple of assumptions.

1. The Bloomington Police Department are not lying and there is actual video of the phone being stolen.
2. That Kevin Dorsey didn't mastermind this whole thing as part of a grand scheme to take over the world and as a result I'm going to assume that everything reported is accurate and true.

Knowing all of this, I am increasingly coming around to this not being a huge deal.

There are two paths that people can take here and both are dangerous.  The first is to assume immediately that this is an atrocious event, people should be held responsible and this may be an indictment on the entire program (or possibly the entire athletic department).  The other is to brush it completely off to the side as "kids will be kids" before we know any of the facts. Both are dangerous to do before we know many of the details and it is why on Tuesday (just 2 days ago) I posted urging people to not jump to any conclusions before we know more.

But as we know more and more of the facts, it appears to be turning out to be a case of kids will be kids.  Kids making poor decisions with a serious lack of judgment.  Is this all OK?  NO! But is this worthy of piling on the program?  Digging deep to make comparisons between this and previous incidents that were actual scandals? I personally don't think so.

My first thought when all of this was initially being reported and talked about was, is this a criminal act?

The answer, as we know it today, is an emphatic NO.  Any comparisons to past criminal charges as related to Gopher Basketball are not relevant.  What McNeil was charged with is completely unrelated to what these three kids were involved with. Why?  Because that was illegal.  If GoAUpher gets charged with stealing from Wal Mart, then a few days later I am seen at Wal Mart...they are not related other than we were both at the Wal Mart.

This, as we know today, was consensual. (caveat reminder that if something comes out to the contrary, then this really does become a BIG DEAL and I will be the first to say so.  At that point we need to ask serious questions about the program's leadership)

My second though was, man was that ever stupid.  Stupid to record the act and even dumber to post it on Twitter.

Turns out the first part of that statement holds water...it was stupid.  The second part? Turns out that due to the phone likely being stolen it is entirely plausible that it was someone else who posted it.  Who actually posted? A detail we do not yet know. And to be honest, even if Dorsey posted it accidentally, it is still largely just an issued of stupidity. Incredibly stupid.  (caveat here about not being fully aware of legality of how the woman felt about all this, but again we have zero indication that there are criminal complaints involved in any way here...at this moment.)

It was dumb to record this and the fact that the video surfaced, it looks bad for the program.  While I may personally not endorse even the act as something appropriate, I'm pretty realistic and understand that college athletes having sexual relations with other college students actually happens.  Probably happens a lot.  Expectations that it won't happen are ridiculous.  Expectations that Richard Pitino should know their whereabouts 24 hours a day is unrealistic.  Expectations that these kids should act appropriately and understand that they are incredibly fortunate is not unrealistic but mistakes are going to be made.

This is an embarrassing situation for the kids involved and the basketball program.  Kevin Dorsey's father said this in Fuller's Pioneer Press article about how this situation

"has caused Kevin a great deal of stress and embarrassment, and he feels a tremendous amount of sorrow about how it has impacted his teammates, coaches and the University of Minnesota."

I have zero issue with the suspensions of the players.  If this were just a one-game suspension I'd probably be OK with it as well.  Considering the train wreck of a season we are experiencing the additional three games are meaningless in my opinion.  The additional games may not have been necessary but maybe it helps to drive home the point that they need to not only be careful but they also need to represent themselves and the program in a better way.

Should this incident be an indictment on the coaching staff?  I don't think so.  Is this something systemic and problem with the athletic department?  I really don't think so.  Sometimes kids make poor choices and sometimes those choices become public knowledge.

I hope that we can move on from this and barring any additional information, it goes away.  We can forget about this as quickly as I'm going to try and forget this season ever happened.  Additionally, and most importantly, I hope they learn from this and become wiser young men because of it.

I'm not here defending any of these guys in any way!  This whole thing is not only stupid but it is not exactly respectful of the young woman and it just shows a serious lack of judgment. I'm pissed that this thing has come out and makes the program look bad both locally and nationally.  I only want the best for Gopher Basketball and this is not it.   Not remotely.  But this was not a scandal, this is not a "-gate" kind of thing, what occurred was an act of stupidity.  They should be suspended and I don't feel bad for their embarrassment over the situation.  But I think it is time to move on.