Marcus Smart Loses His Temper, Pushes a Fan In Oklahoma State Loss to Texas Tech
By Nathan Giese
Oklahoma State has been struggling as of late, losing four games in a row and five of their last six. The Cowboys were once considered to be a national championship contender and are now on the bubble for the NCAA tournament. One silver lining for Oklahoma State has been Marcus Smart, who continues to be a top NBA prospect and All-American candidate.
Unfortunately, when a player has such a drive and desire to be the best and for his team to be the best, losing often has a great impact on those those driven players. Losing is not an option for players such as Smart. They care too much to have their teams lose consistently and just take it laying down. With the struggles the Cowboys have had recently Smart finally lost it.
In the closing moments of Oklahoma State’s game against Texas Tech, the ball wound up on the floor when the Cowboys needed a basket to tie the game, Smart fouled the Red Raiders on the ensuing layup attempt and fell into the stands. After being helped up, Smart stood face-to-face with a older Texas Tech fan, looked at him for a few moments and promptly shoved him back into his seat.
Chaos ensued quickly after and the Cowboys lost the game in the end, their fourth in a row. After the win, Texas Tech fans stormed the court, causing Smart to get caught in the madness and had to be restrained and escorted off the court by a Cowboys staff member. Smart was still fired up and tried to plead his case with the officials on why he did what he did.
Smart is a smart kid. He chose to return to Stillwater for another season rather than enter the 2013 NBA Draft, become a top-five selection and make millions of dollars. He knew he had a few things to work on on the court and wanted to end his college career as a winner. With the talent Oklahoma State returned this season, anything less than an Elite Eight berth would’ve been unacceptable. Now the Cowboys are in danger of not making the NCAA tournament at all.
Losing is never an option for a driven winner. Smart’s maturity has been well documented in his two years at Oklahoma State. As a freshman he gained access to the team’s scouting reports on their opponents, gathered his teammates in his room and would dissect the report thoroughly, all before the coaching staff had a chance to talk to the team. He is the most vocal player on the court and gets his team together whenever they are down.
His maturity will now be called into question even though he’s done all of this prior to the pushing of the fan. Oklahoma State has been struggling. As stated before the Cowboys have not been winning basketball games. Head coach Travis Ford had to start begging students to attend their games. Attendance was low at Gallagher-Iba Arena even though the Cowboys were a good team playing in a great conference against other good teams. Michael Cobbins, one of their best interior players, was lost for the year with an injury. Backup point guard Stevie Clark was kicked off the team after a a number of arrests. Things have not been going well for Oklahoma State.
Now their top player faces a potential suspension. That will be determined sooner rather than later. Even the strongest willed people can break down in the heat of battle. Everybody has their breaking point and it would appear that Marcus Smart finally hit his. He gave up a shot at being a millionaire before he turned 20 years old. He gave up the NBA spotlight to be a winner. He’s now going to be known as a great player who lost his temper and reacted according to what he felt was necessary.
At this time we don’t know what the fan said to Smart that caused him to react in the manner he did. All we know right now is that he is being compared to Ron Artest and his involvement in the Malice in the Palace. This was not even close to that encounter but Smart seems to finally have had enough. He’s shown some outbursts recently, see the chair kicking incident, and his frustration has finally boiled over.
Smart’s character has never been questioned before recently. He’s still a top NBA prospect and his maturity should not be called into question. What happened Saturday night was unfortunate but it does not make up Marcus Smart. How he handles the situation in the coming days will determine that.
The Big 12 commissioner will review the case on Sunday. Smart was not made available for the media after the game.