This March, Keep the Upsets On The Basketball Court and Off of Social Media

Get your brackets ready and start choosing your winner, because it’s March and the madness is upon us. But let’s be sure to keep the upsets on the court and off social media.

Dating back to March 17, 1939, the NCAA Tournament has become a beloved treasure and the final tournament that grants only one college basketball team as national champions. College athletes are thrust into the national spotlight and given the ultimate chance to become a champion, regardless of their school’s size. To qualify, teams must be a Division 1 program and win their conference tournament or receive an “at-large” bid from the NCAA tournament selection committee. This bid selection is typically based on record and strength of schedule.

The tournament grants smaller schools the opportunity to shine on the biggest stages. Like in 2020 when Oral Roberts upset Ohio State in the first round. Upsets are a huge factor, and fans tune in extra for an underdog story. The biggest upset of them all, however, would be if a player had a bad social media post as this would harm his/her team. This could result in a player missing playing time and distract from their team. While this has happened before in college basketball, there is now a solution to prevent it from happening again.

‍Back in April of 2018, after Villanova had won the NCAA tournament, past tweets from star player Donte DiVincenzo had surfaced causing a media frenzy.DiVincenzo’s tweets contained questionable content and offensive language. As a result of this, DiVincenzo had to delete his Twitter account and the Villanova men’s basketball released a statement about the situation. This incident had Divincenzo negatively in the spotlight for a number of weeks. It also may have affected how NBA teams viewed him for the upcoming draft.

If these tweets had surfaced during Villanova’s tournament play, the repercussions could have been more drastic. When similar instances occurred during regular season, players had to sit out of games and make public apologies for their posts. If Divincenzo’s old tweets reached the public eye in March, and he was forced to sit out of the tournament’s games, the Villanova men’s basketball team may not have been crowned national champions. Divincenzo was voted the “Most Outstanding Player” honor and dropped 31 alone in the national championship. His play for Villanova was extremely impactful.

Using a solution like LifeBrand, situations such as Divincenzo’s are preventable. LifeBrand’s technology analyzes your social media accounts. It then flags any questionable posts. Once this process is complete, users can delete, edit, or ignore their flagged posts. Additionally, every flagged post comes with an explanation. This helps the end user understand why the technology chose to flag it. It also encourages them to educate themselves about why the post was deemed “potentially harmful.”

LifeBrand has already made its way into the basketball world helping NBA organizations such as the Philadelphia 76ers improve their brand on social media. Colleges can benefit by the technology as well, especially schools in the tournament. The increased attention to young athletes can lead to social media scandals. With LifeBrand, the attention can remain on the teams’ tournament performance.

Check out our free scan option today. Let’s keep the upsets on the basketball court and off of social media.

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