The stories behind 10 of your favorite college basketball Twitter accounts (2024)

College basketball Twitter contains multitudes. Such is the nature of a sport with so many Division I programs and so many die-hard fan bases, and thus so many online communities; the result is a vast and varying sea. This can be a challenge for fans who keep up with the sport on Twitter, or even (ahem) writers: How do you keep an eye on all of the stuff? What fans from other fan bases should you be following? Who are the most interesting, thought-provoking, analytical accounts? Who does the best fake coach impression?

With a new season not so far off, there’s no better time to take stock of college hoops Twitter — and most important, to find a few folks to follow. Last week we put out a call on Twitter for nominations of your favorite college hoops-related follows, with the emphasis on people slightly outside the mainstream, something different than the obvious national reporter with 50,000 followers or whatever. Among the nominations you sent back were a mix of people you — and we — think every college hoops fan should at least take a look at following. Presented below in no particular order are 10 of your favorite college hoops Twitter accounts (and the folks they think you should follow too).

(One note: Thank you to everyone who nominated. We would love to include even more of your nominations, so we may follow this post up with more picks down the line, hopefully spanning an even broader depth of voices and points of view. Keep sending us your favorites.)

@hoopvision68 (Jordan Sperber)

Name: Jordan Sperber

Followers: 26,400

Day job: Owner at Hoop Vision LLC

Home base:Albany, N.Y.

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: The intersection of college basketball X’s and O’s and analytics.

People should follow you if: You can tolerate an incessant number of tweets about “Continuity Ball Screen” – what I’ve arbitrarily declared the “most run play in college basketball.”

People should not follow you if: You think (insert coach here) doesn’t run any plays and just “rolls the ball out.” There are legitimate reasons to be critical of a college basketball coach, but that’s almost never one of them. (My Twitter mentions very occasionally indicate otherwise.)

When did you have the idea for Hoop Vision? How did it start? I started Hoop Vision just over 10 years ago as a junior in high school. At the time, it was just a Twitter account and blog. I was inspired by some of the pre-existing college basketball bloggers, writers and tweeters at that time: John Gasaway (Big Ten Wonk), David Hess (The Audacity of Hoops), Ken Pomeroy (KenPom.com), Dan Hanner (Yet Another Basketball Blog) and Kyle Whelliston (The Mid-Majority).

The @hoopvision handle was already taken, so I chose @hoopvision68 because my plan was to cover every team — mid-majors included — that had a strong chance of making the NCAA Tournament (68 teams). When I started the account, I was playing high school basketball. My own high school season (obviously) conflicted with the college basketball season, so my tweeting and coverage was limited. In college I began taking Hoop Vision more seriously. It was during that time when some D1 coaches started reaching out to me directly on Twitter regarding my work.

After I graduated, the coaches who eventually hired me for their staffs (Eric Musselman at Nevada and Paul Weir at New Mexico State) were the first two who reached out to me early on in college. So I always like to say that Twitter has landed me all of my jobs.

How has your account evolved alongside it? I always wanted Hoop Vision to be a combination of analytics and X’s and O’s, but early on the account was definitely skewed toward the analytics end of the spectrum. The analytics side was really my niche for breaking into the industry. More recently I’ve transitioned into quite a bit of X’s and O’s content. I think those tweets have especially helped the account grow, because there is a very active community of basketball coaches on Twitter.

The other part that has evolved is just the general time and effort that goes into the Twitter account. I don’t necessarily use my account for stream of consciousness thoughts and reactions like most sports Twitter accounts. Instead, I’ll spend hours (sometimes even days) on videos, graphs and charts. When I started doing that, I felt almost guilty spending so much time on a one-off social media post. But because Twitter has since proven to be such an important part of our business funnel, it’s much easier to justify now.

When I asked people to shout out accounts for this piece, yours was among the most frequently mentioned. Have you been surprised by the popularity of your work, or did you always assume this demand was out there? First off, I’m very grateful that people enjoy the account. To be fair, the account actually wasn’t very popular when I started in high school and college. When I announced I was restarting Hoop Vision (after leaving my job at New Mexico State) as a full-time business venture in September 2018, the account had only about 1,700 followers.

That being said, the goal I set for myself that September was to get to 10,000 followers by March 1, so I definitely had expectations for the business. I ended up missing the 10,000-follower goal by just a couple of days, but fortunately the growth hasn’t slowed down at all since then.

What has changed about the tactics of college basketball the most in the past five years? I think the biggest change has been coaches emphasizing spacing on the perimeter with 4-out offenses and now 5-out offenses. There have always been undersized mid-majors playing that way, but the average high-major team has typically played a more traditional style with a crowded paint.

Villanova’s extreme success with their 4-out motion offense was a big factor in the shift, but right now I think it’s the NBA game that is pushing the shift even further. So many NBA offenses are playing 5-out with centers out on the perimeter. It’s already partially infiltrated the college game, but I expect the trend to keep growing this season and over the next five years.

Which coach’s game film most fascinates you? Going off of just fascination alone, I think the answer has to be Tony Bennett. His teams play such extreme styles on both ends of the court — the pack-line defense and the blocker-mover offense — it’s perfect for the Hoop Vision-style of analysis. With a Tony Bennett team, you know almost exactly what you are going to get. But they bet on being able to execute better than you.

During their national championship season, they started using the continuity ball-screen offense in addition to their blocker-mover. So I would hand-track their efficiency splits with the offenses and live tweet them at halftime and postgame. Because Virginia is so structured, their style lends itself to that type of analysis.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: I think @5th_Factor is an under-followed account that college hoops fans should check out. Especially if you like data visualization.

What is your best tweet? My most viral tweet was South Dakota State passing the ball 12 times in a row for a dunk. My favorite, however, was about every coach’s favorite word:

It turns out running a program is actually very simple: pic.twitter.com/XV9qKGyRcq

— Jordan Sperber (@hoopvision68) April 22, 2019

@FakeBobHuggins

Name: Prefer not to say — I even wore a mask to preserve the mystery when I met the real Bob Huggins.

Followers: 12,800

Day job: At least until that Twitter money starts rolling in, I’m an IT project manager.

Home base: Florida

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Mostly censored profanity, the occasional drinking game, Bill Self jokes.

People should follow you if: They know who Bob Huggins is, don’t mind the occasional Dad joke and understand first and foremost that Twitter is a silly, silly place.

People should not follow you if: Their name is Doug Sirmons, they have a problem with saying that black lives matter or they don’t mind the occasional very obscure WVU sports reference.

What was your impetus for signing up for Twitter? What inspired you to embody Bob Huggins? I’ve been going to WVU basketball games since I was a baby. I was a ballboy for four years in the ’90s when WVU was still in the Atlantic 10. I’m a WVU grad who met my wife at WVU, so this is in my blood. When I created the account in 2011, Real Bob Huggins wasn’t yet on Twitter. Between his sideline demeanor with officials, his intensity with his players, his deadpan delivery in postgame interviews and his subtle playfulness when he’s having fun, is there anyone more rife for parody? I eased into it, and played all the hits. Lots of yelling. Censored profanity. Making fun of any and all of our rivals, ESPecially Pitt. (Capitalization intended.)

Did you think the account would grow the way it has? No, of course not. It’s been a completely unexpected experience. I’ve made some great friends, met some wonderful people, and it will never not be weird to me when someone introduces me to someone else as FakeBobHuggins.

You’ve met Huggs on several occasions; you’ve even joined him for segments on his radio show. Was it awkward at first? Did he get it? Did that change your view on the account? If so, how? Coach Huggins has been an incredible sport about the whole thing. When we first met, he was very complimentary, and was able to cite specific tweets of mine that he enjoyed. I think in the time that preceded that I established some credibility (as much as a parody Twitter account can) at being reasonable and respectful, but at the end of the day, I’m a fan with very little to lose. He’s the Hall of Fame coach, I just play one on Twitter. I know, though, he appreciates I’m able to say things that he cannot.

After my first appearance on his radio show, he invited me back to his house to hang in his famous basem*nt. He was the most hospitable and generous host, and that was one of the greatest nights of my life. At the end of the day, I care about the man, his legacy, his family, and I am grateful for my muse. I tell anyone I know that he’s the real deal.

What is your greatest insight into the Huggins psyche? Now just because we hung out once, and have talked a few times, I claim no special insight. However, as someone who’s followed him particularly closely for the past nine years, I think many people have the wrong impression of his take on officials and college basketball officiating. Coach Huggins isn’t out there saying that basketball officials are just guys whose mothers didn’t pay enough attention to them growing up and are now just jealous of anyone who can dunk. That’s me who says that.

Back to Huggs, he was fined $10,000 last season by the Big 12 for some pretty innocuous comments after the Kansas game. If you read the quote in context, he was trying to defend how tough a job they have and was really griping with the inconsistency among the crew as they were doing their rotations. Coach Huggins has repeatedly been a huge proponent of making the officials NCAA employees instead of independent contractors for the leagues. Give them regions and limit their travel. He truly is a guy who is trying to bring solutions to the game, not just complaints. That’s just one of many examples.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: @CoachGracia is a good X’s and O’s account run by a guy named Eric Gracia. (Note, that’s Gracia and not Garcia.)

What is your best tweet?

My defibrillator once went off during a timeout and I finished coaching the game, but you know whatever. You do you, Mike. https://t.co/Ppdr79tL0I

— Fake Bob Huggins (@FakeBobHuggins) January 13, 2018

@NoEscalators

Names: Anonymous

Followers: 13,200

Day jobs: Recovering journalists

Home base:NYC area

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Did you know in 2014 both the UConn men’s and —

People should follow you if: We’re amazed anyone does.

People should not follow you if: They want anything that remotely resembles basketball analysis.

What’s the origin of the “No Escalators” handle? There is a motivational saying that “there is no escalator to success, you have to take the stairs.” That’s all well and good, but when Kevin Ollie was introduced as UConn’s head coach he gave a fired-up speech, perhaps got a little too excited and declared that UConn was going to take the stairs because “escalators are for cowards.” That is the funniest thing we have ever heard a coach say. Ollie’s star may not have burned long, but it sure burned bright.

Your account was mentioned more than a few times in the replies to my tweet, and I feel like there’s a resonance that goes beyond UConn fans. What do you think people are drawn to? We resonate because we can find the one thing that will drive an opposing fan base mad and then are willing to post about it 500 times in a row without engaging in any sort of good-faith debate. For instance, did you know that Providence has made the second round of the NCAA Tournament just once since 1997? It is true, and we promise we will work harder and go further than anyone else to make sure that fact is mentioned every time someone even considers thinking about Providence, the state of Rhode Island, clam bakes or anything else even remotely associated with the school. And it is not just Providence, we will do it for everyone, because apparently people on the Internet like hearing the same dozen jokes over and over and over again.

It feels like it’s been a … weird time to be a UConn fan the past few years. Has that made you guys more creative? Has it changed the nature of the UConn fan community online? It’s been a ride. We think a lot of fans, us included, were originally ready to see UConn make a go of it in the AAC. But it became clear over the past several years that for myriad reasons — cultural, geographical, willingness to read chapter books — UConn was not a good fit in the AAC. We broke earlier than many UConn fans with the idea that UConn had to go back to the Big East, and then, us being us, talked about it incessantly to the point that it is a shock anyone kept following our account. Remember the thing in the answer about posting the same upsetting thing 500 times in a row? Well, it turns out UConn fans do not like it when you do that about UConn. Very surprising. For a while there, it was genuinely unpleasant to follow UConn and, we imagine, us. But then UConn did go back to the Big East, and the outpouring of excitement is a very strong indicator it was the right choice. The fan base has been noticeably invigorated by UConn’s return to where it belongs. As for us, we are not sure it has made us more creative, but it definitely means there are now two conferences worth of schools for us to look down on, so we have a lot of material to play with.

How good does it feel to be back in the Big East? We will be honest: At least one of us cried. Being in the AAC was frustrating on two levels. First, it was terrible because you had to play East Carolina and Tulsa and I think McNeese State. If you tried extremely hard, maybe you could get up the energy to care about what Cincinnati did, but that was as far as it went. Second, and worse, was the constant feeling that UConn was forever locked out from being what it was. We had the trophies and would always have the memories, but the fear was real that there would not be any new ones. Going back to the Big East changed that in an instant. We have rivals again. The schools we associate with care about basketball as much as we do. Providence and Seton Hall will never again get a recruit we want. People say the Big East is not the same league it was when we left, and it is true that the members have changed, but it is a league that makes sense, and makes sense for us. We imagine many Syracuse fans would tell you they would not want to go back to the Big East from the ACC, but we all know that in the second week in March, when the Big East tournament tips off at MSG, those Syracuse fans know they are not in the right place. And when that tournament tips off next year we will know we are. It is damn good to be home.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: @Russ_Steinberg, who 1) runs Silver Sword, a very fun competition to predict the winner of all of college basketball’s early season tournaments, and 2) once made UConn great Rebecca Lobo go back-to-back with him.

What is your best tweet? There is no such thing as a good tweet. With that said, this baby, sent as UConn was cutting down the nets after winning the 2014 national championship, will always have a special place in our heart.

Tyler Olander has more national championships than Jim Boeheim.

— UConn: It's Coming (@NoEscalators) April 8, 2014

@CapX15 (Captain Xavier)

Name: Jason Meyer

Followers: 1,915

Day job: I just got a job doing customer service from home, but about five months ago, I separated out of the Navy after five years!

Home base:The Cincinnati suburbs, of course!

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: A wild, cheeky meme factory.

People should follow you if: They like comedy and basketball, in that order.

People should not follow you if: They like the AAC.

Why “Captain Xavier”? That’s a good question. Justin Doellman, the former Xavier player it’s modeled after, was my favorite player as a kid and they were calling him “Europe’s Captain America” and I thought it was interesting so I just went with it. Ha ha. I wanted to stay true to me, I fell in love with Xavier hoops in the 2000s and Doellman was my guy.

What is your primary directive on Twitter? I just want to make people laugh and enhance the fan experience. And I just love Xavier basketball. I want to give Xavier fans cool content.

There is a suspicious amount of talk about burner accounts on your timeline. How many Twitter accounts do you actually have? Hahahahahahaha, this is great! So I only actively use three: Captain Xavier, my personal and the Xavier TBT account. But I’ve been known to make a burner for when a funny situation arises. There are also another 60-plus people that would claim to be “Cap” lol. See: “It’s all Cap.”

Is the Cincinnati-Xavier rivalry as brutal on the Internet as it sometimes appears to be in real life? More so? Less so? Why or why not? Fantastic question. I’d say more so. It gets wild. We saw it this week with the Shootout contract stuff. That’s what I love about this rivalry. You will get random Twitter brawls any day, any time. I think it’s the nastiest rivalry in college basketball.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: I would say
@fundamentallySD for funnies and @CBB_Tidbits. As much as I’m going to hate myself for saying this, @NoEscalators might be the funniest account on Twitter.

What is your best tweet? I’m probably most proud of my Xavier Elite Eight video or my Mick Cronin montage lol. But maybe recently, this one made me chuckle:

It’s called ESPN+ but these UC fans are always so ESPN negative

— Captain Xavier (@CapX15) October 14, 2020

@ChronicHoosier

Name: {null}

Followers: 41,800

Day job: Finance

Home base:Bloomington, Ind.

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Indiana man shouts into the void, tall co*cktail in hand.

People should follow you if: I’ve never asked anyone to follow me, and I’d generally advise against it, but some folks have demonstrated an interest in mediocre takes about all things Indiana from a perspective without credentials, expertise or f*cks given.

People should not follow you if: They expect me to take them seriously for taking me more seriously than I take myself.

I’ve known of your Internet presence for at least a decade, from back when I was covering Indiana. I’ve heard multiple beat writers describe you as a legend. The second auto-fill result when one Googles “Chronic Hoosier” is “identity.” How did you get so Internet famous? The Internet is a weird place, man. Sometime in the early aughts I stopped using Windows solitaire as a primary work distraction and started clicking around the web for my sports news, and like the idiot I am, I began reading the comment sections, and like the bigger idiot I am, I’d sometimes leave comments too. Around this time, Doug Wilson, the Bloomington Herald-Times’ then-sports editor, started hiring all these young East Coasters (Chris Korman, Dustin Dopirak, Hugh Kellenberger) who began to respond to the comments and created a blog (S/O Hoosier Scoop) and started hosting live game chats. For me, it was the digital version of watching IU basketball on a muted TV with Don Fischer on the radio (which I was still doing), only now within an interactive community environment. I’m pretty sure that site is where my handle was born. Next thing you know, all the journalists were using this new site, Twitter, to push out their links and continue the conversations. Doug was my first Twitter follow, Hugh was my second, and soon thereafter guys like Zach Osterman and Alex Bozich followed. Back when the #iubb universe was just emerging, those guys engaged with me, as did the online communities they were all curating at the time, and it all just kind of spiraled out of control from there.

What is your favorite thing about being an Indiana fan? Being born and raised in the 812, perhaps only the weather has been a bigger topic of conversation throughout my life than IU sports. It’s a thread that runs through the fabric of all the communities in which I’ve lived here and throughout all the times of my life. It’s a tie that binds my childhood best friends, my college roommates, my adult friends, and especially my family together. I’m forever grateful for the community and shared experiences afforded to me by our love of IU.

What is your least favorite thing about being an Indiana fan? Can you even imagine a lifetime of Indiana football fandom? Don’t get me wrong, I really like the current state of #iufb, but can you actually imagine an entire lifetime of it? And I’m not saying it has been that long since March 30, 1987, but 12,254 days is kind of starting to feel like a long time.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: I adore @DoctorGC. His TL is a human potpourri of sports, music, golden retrievers and food (and a podcast for nearly every subject), but he’s got a good eye for the game and an analytical mind. He’s a pretty decent bracketologist too, but for that you absolutely want to follow @AndyBottoms.

What is your best tweet? I’ve made a boatload of awful memes, but only one truly took my breath away.

What remains. #iubb pic.twitter.com/Kxl4C35IAf

— chronichoosier (@ChronicHoosier) March 25, 2014

@IfTonyTweeted (Phony Bennett)

Name: Chris Dembitz

Followers: 19,300

Day job: Property management executive

Home base: Virginia Beach, Va.

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Virginia and ACC basketball with snark, humor and bourbon-powered insight.

People should follow you if: They embrace the pace. If they think the UMBC loss followed by the national championship is the greatest redemption story in sports. If they don’t care that Ty Jerome double-dribbled. If they’re OK with laughing at their own team and their opponents. Also, if they like ACC basketball and/or Virginia sports in general.

People should not follow you if: They can’t handle the occasional joke at their team’s expense, whether that happens to be the Hoos or another team.

What inspired you to take on the role of Tony Bennett? I found myself commiserating with other UVa fans on Twitter and had started performing standup again. A comedy outlet on Twitter made sense, but I didn’t expect it to take off or to find myself still doing it eight years later. But I still enjoy it, at least until I have to explain what I do to someone who isn’t on. Because then it sounds really dumb. Which it is, but that’s Twitter for you.

The fourth wall has long since been broken, right? My secret identity was revealed in the UVa magazine a few years back, but I had ceased trying to tweet like Tony long before that. I just found myself gradually dropping the conceit of being a fake Tony Bennett and the folks following me didn’t seem to mind. Which is good, because there’s no way I could have maintained it that way. I would have lost interest a long time ago. But I do like that it’s still under a pseudonym, because that gives a level of abstraction that gives me a little more creative freedom than just tweeting as the real me (who isn’t nearly as interesting as the fake me).

How seriously did you take the bit at the start? Not very. The initial description on the account was something like “Tweeting the things the real Tony Bennett is too smart to say.” So I tweeted as though I was the coach, but there’s no way he would have tweeted those things and only a remote chance he would have thought them. He’s a lot nicer than I am.

What caused you to involve your own voice or persona more frequently? One can only maintain a gimmick for so long. During the first season I was tweeting, I would find myself tweeting during games and I would say that more of my personality was coming through, as the tweets were more impromptu and not as well thought out. So I think it was just a natural slide into what was more of my style of comedy, as opposed to trying to do a specific character that I created.

How has the account evolved? I think I’ve matured a lot, which is weird to say. When I started I would take more shots at individual players, and there were fewer areas that were off-limits as far as where I’d go in my criticisms. I think these days I’m more cognizant of the fact that these are kids playing a game, and I try not to take any of it too seriously. I got some criticism for not being more upset after the UMBC loss, and while that loss was devastating, I still got to wake up the next morning, with a roof over my head, food to eat and kids to hug. I try to have perspective. When I started this account, my youngest daughter was battling Stage 4 cancer. She’s a healthy 9-year-old now. No basketball loss will ever compare to that emotional journey. Tony’s father, Dick, actually said it best: “Because I know what truly matters — it enables me to enjoy what seems to matter.” So while I may find myself angry in the moment after a bad call or a tough loss, I’m able to put things in balance and recognize that being able to watch a game, to cheer for a team and to experience the ups and downs of it all is quite the luxury. And so win or lose, I’m thankful to have sports in my life. And that recognition has made me a lot more easygoing on Twitter than I used to be. I just want to have fun with it all, and hope the folks reading it do the same.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: As a fan of advanced basketball stats (which is a requirement as a UVa fan), I’m going to suggest Bart Torvik, @totallytbomb. He does similar rankings and analysis to Ken Pomeroy using tempo-free stats, but with his own algorithms. I checked his follower count and he should have way more, given the quality of work he does at his website.

What is your best tweet? I don’t know that I have a favorite or one that I would consider best, but I think this one is pretty representative of what I try to do. It was in the midst of our title run, after we’d spent the prior year listening to critics say that a Tony Bennett team couldn’t be successful in the NCAA tourney. Duke, featuring Zion, had just been bounced from the tournament. A lot of people took this tweet at face value, which just amuses me to no end.

Wow, Duke was so dominant in the regular season. Makes you wonder if Coach K’s style works in March.

— Phony Bennett (@IfTonyTweeted) March 31, 2019

@totallytbomb (Bart Torvik)

Name: Bart Torvik

Followers: 6,693

Day job: Lawyer

Home base: Evanston, Ill.

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Highly dubious analysis of college basketball.

People should follow you if: They like tweets about sports, especially sports stats.

People should not follow you if: You cannot handle positive tweets about the Wisconsin Badgers.

What came first: T-Rank or Twitter? Twitter!

What is the origin story of your work in the hoops space? How do the two interact? The first thing I did was try to compute some limited preseason ratings before the 2013-14 season. Then during that season I used Kenpom.com to compute conference-only adjusted efficiency margins for the Big Ten, which I called “The Friday Facts” (an homage to John Gasaway’s “Tuesday Truths”). For the next season I expanded the preseason ratings project to all 351 teams, and while working on that I sort of figured out how to calculate adjusted efficiency ratings, and it snowballed from there. In those early days, it was mostly blogging, but I got more into Twitter and that is definitely where many people found the stuff I was putting out. I love Twitter.

What’s the most interesting or high-profile inquiry you’ve had as a result of your stats work? I have gotten to know a few young assistant coaches looking for an edge, and it has been fun to follow their careers and root for them. I also got to have a couple of drinks with Kevin Jewell (@kevinjewell11), then the Badgers’ GA and now Omaha’s DOBO, when they came to Evanston a couple of years ago.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: David Hess (@AudacityOfHoops) because he insists he is niche.

What is your best tweet? Man, this is like picking a favorite child if you had thousands of children and couldn’t remember any of them. Guess I’ll go with this one.

To me, the telltale sign The Simulation was going haywire was when UCLA hired Mick Cronin.

— Bart T😷rvik (@totally_t_bomb) May 12, 2020

@AudacityOfHoops (David Hess)

Name: David Hess

Followers: 3,361

Day job: Developer/analyst for TeamRankings.com (notably for these purposes, I create our preseason college basketball ratings)

Home base:San Diego

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Sports nerdery, especially college basketball. KU/Chiefs homerism. Dad jokes.

People should follow you if: They want my college basketball data dives from November to March (especially March) and intelligent analysis about other sports (and, fair warning, politics) retweeted into their timelines the rest of the year … and don’t mind me occasionally posting stuff like how awesome the show “Dark” is, pictures of the beers my friend just shipped me or that Hozier’s self-titled album is the best album of the 2010s.

People should not follow you if: They think rebound margin and the RPI are super awesome and refuse to entertain arguments otherwise.

Do you remember when you joined Twitter? What was the idea? What do you think would become of it? How has it changed your career? Changed your life? Oh, man, it’s gonna be hard to keep this one short. Twitter (and more broadly, being a college basketball data nerd) has been hugely, hugely important to my career. I can’t even picture what I’d be doing if it didn’t exist.

In grad school (for neuroscience) I was a regular commentator on a now-defunct Kansas sports blog run by Martin Manley (RIP) of the Kansas City Star. He asked me to do a guest post, and I created my own blog (audacityofhoops.blogspot.com) to host some of the supplemental data and analysis.

Those guest posts caught the eye of @jeremychrysler, and we created a now-defunct NCAA tourney analysis site called HackTheBracket with Bet LaGree (@hoopinion). That didn’t take off, but Jeremy hired me for my first real job out of grad school, doing data analysis for an internet advertising company (big jump from neuroscience, right?). Meanwhile, I created this Twitter account basically to promote my blog. And to my surprise, it kinda worked! The way I recall it, @vegaswatch (who’s been around long enough to remember that guy?) shared something of mine to a larger audience, things snowballed a little, and I ended up doing some writing for NBC Sports, College Basketball Prospectus and Luke Winn’s Sports Illustrated blog.

That stuff caught the eye of Tom Federico, who runs TeamRankings. I agreed to do some writing for them, and it was just as I was starting that I got laid off from my data analyst job. I mentioned it in passing to him; he suggested I work for TR, and I’ve been doing that for the last 9½ years. I started blogging and doing some one-off analysis, and now I’m the lead back-end developer and the person in charge of maintaining all our predictive models and developing new models and analysis.

So, TLDR: my only “real” jobs after school both came about directly because of my sports analysis and writing, and without Twitter I don’t think the second one would have happened.

As a member of at least a decade’s standing, what’s your favorite thing about college hoops Twitter? The way we can all come together to dunk on the RPI. More seriously, I’ve seen a lot of good work get recognition. Jordan Sperber comes to mind there. Sperber came out of seemingly nowhere to be one of the more respected college basketball analysis account in like no time at all. And he deserves it. And it’s not based on politics or connections, just on him being a really good analyst.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: I couldn’t choose, so here’s two. If you like Ken Pomeroy, @totallytbomb has a site that at first seems like a Pomeoroy clone. However, his ratings have progressed beyond that, and the site is jam-packed with little features because whenever he is curious about something, he builds a tool to answer his question, and then makes it available for other people to use. For anybody frustrated with the NCAA Tournament selection process, @sethburn is a great follow. He calculates, publishes and evangelizes Wins Above Baseline (WAB), an objective measure of team performance that could (and ideally would) be used for tourney selection.

What is your best tweet? This was during No. 8 Butler’s overtime win over No. 2 Florida in the 2011 Elite Eight. I like it because while the main focus is disparaging Reggie Miller, it’s also high praise for Gus Johnson when you really think about it. The biggest downside is that it involves a manual* RT of Darren Rovell (*though this was back when all RTs were manual, because it wasn’t a built-in Twitter function yet, so shouldn’t be penalized).

Give him Reggie's RT @darrenrovell If this goes to 2OT, Gus might need a quick larynx replacement.

— David Hess (@AudacityOfHoops) March 26, 2011

@FakeJoeDooley (FakeJoeDooley)

Name: Anonymous

Followers: 13,800

Day job: Pretend basketball coach

Home base:The Boom Boom Room.

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words:Come for the dunks and 3-pointers, stay for the pizza.

People should follow you if: You recognize the greatness of Tyshawn Taylor.

People should not follow you if: You own a purple article of clothing.

In a world now full of fake coach Twitter accounts, burners and meme posters, you were one of the originals — one of the first accounts I remember bringing some real quirk to hoops Twitter in the early days. Do you remember the initial idea for the account?The account started because people love Joe Dooley and you gotta give the people what they want.

How have things evolved over time? Obviously, the real Joe Dooley has blazed new trails away from KU hoops. In the past several years, the FJD twitter account has certainly taken a hiatus, but is not in retirement. It’s kind of like Steve Martin coming back and doing a comedy special every once in awhile. When March Madness comes around, FJD comes out swinging. CBS airing the national championship game during the early days of quarantine certainly gave some KU fans some sunshine when there wasn’t much to go around anywhere else, especially considering we should have been cruising to an Elite Eight win that day. But anytime there is excitement around Kansas basketball or them doing something stupid like fighting the football team, FJD will be there.

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: @JayhawkTalk is the only Jayhawks twitter account that should be a mandatory follow for everyone, even the Russian bots.

What is your best tweet?

Hats off to K-State. But remember when you beat us, you rush to court. When we beat you, we get chicken nuggets and watch Sports Center.

— FakeJoeDooley (@FakeJoeDooley) February 11, 2014

@HalfCourtHoops (Half Court Hoops)

Name: Gibson Pyper

Followers: 45,300

Day job: Basketball coach/consultant

Home base:Raleigh, N.C.

Describe your account in 10 or fewer words: Basketball X’s & O’s, playbooks and breakdowns.

People should follow you if: They enjoy the nuances of basketball coaching and strategy, and learning more about the X’s and O’s.

People should not follow you if: You are looking for the typical clickbait and hot takes.

You’re a high school basketball coach. Some folks probably know this about your account — it’s not a secret — but it’s not hard to imagine many basketball obsessives who follow you not really knowing that. What’s your day-to-day like? In season it gets pretty intense. Normally I am with my two twin boys during the day and spending time with them. When they go down for their nap I will begin to collect my thoughts for the practice/game that day. I run the offense so going over the last practices or game film, working on scouting for the future and tweaking/working on little adjustments to focus on. Once I am home from practice or the game, I typically will watch and edit film until around 3-4 a.m. and finish up any extra work I have and projects I am working on. Offseason, it is basically film at any spare moment, working on the past season’s film and building up my video library.

How did your account come about? Initially I wanted to learn more about X’s & O’s as a young coach, and I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for so I decided to create it. On my honeymoon with my wife, I took a yellow pad and wrote about 25-30 pages of ideas and all of the questions I had as a young coach I would want answered and started from there.

What first inspired you to put so much of this stuff online? I want to help coaches and fans learn more about the game at an affordable cost. Initially I wanted to learn and grow it for free, and it eventually has evolved into my membership site (thebasketballplaybook.com) that I am able to grow coaches’ and players’ IQs. But ultimately just getting the information out there was a way for me to share what I was learning, which is what most coaches love to do.

Have you seen an increase in opportunities thanks to your profile on Twitter? I have. I have had multiple NBA and NCAA teams reach out for interest in working for them and multiple coaches tell me once they get a head coaching position they are going to convince me to come on board. I have had great collaborations and growth opportunities online and in person connecting with coaches all over the world.

What is the most interesting set or scheme you’ve seen while cutting film in the past, let’s say, 18 months? I watch so much it is really hard to pinpoint just one. But I absolutely love this set originally run by Creighton, and then the Mavericks and Spurs stole it. So much action and it is incredible.

The best coaches steal! LOVE this set.

First saw Creighton run this, then the Mavs 6 days later & now the Nuggets here: pic.twitter.com/R2gdeokgVN

— Half Court Hoops (@HalfCourtHoops) September 8, 2020

Name one (relatively unknown) account you think college hoops fans should follow on Twitter: I really love what Brian Geisinger does. He always has a great feel for what happened, and his film work has been great.

What is your best tweet? By far it is the Belmont “Panic” backdoor when they beat UCLA. They fake that the set is breaking down and fake the panic, then win on the backdoor cut. I still miss Rick Byrd coaching.

This beautiful Belmont Backdoor Game Winner is a go to set that Rick Byrd has used for years.

Film Room: Belmont "Panic" Backdoor pic.twitter.com/0ewdm41OUE

— Half Court Hoops (@HalfCourtHoops) December 16, 2018

(Top photo: Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA Photos via Getty)