Nik Stauskas’ girlfriend Taylor Anderson is in one specific way the college basketball version of Lindsey Duke, Blake Bortles’ girlfriend.
Sort of.
(UPDATE: Detroit area teen taking Taylor Anderson to prom, result of meeting Twitter challenge)
(UPDATE: Stauskas trade rumors: Detroit Pistons in play?)
Duke is probably still more internet and “social media famous” than her BF, while Stauskas is definitely more famous all around than Taylor Anderson.
They’re alike only in that every sports blog in the entire world goes out of their way to do a post on both of them whenever possible, regardless of news value. (These blogs just manufacture excuses to post Taylor Anderson photos).
Unless you follow the Milwaukee local television station and ESPN Analyst Jalen Rose standards of journalism. Then this post is HUGE BREAKING NEWS!
Seriously, the Shaka Smart to Marquette and Tom Izzo to the Detroit Pistons “stories” were just silly season standard. Imagine if Mateen Cleaves got on his CBS Sports college basketball studio show and said “John Beilein is likely going to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers.”
That’s pretty much what Rose did.
Anyways, here’s what Anderson originally tweeted:
Thinking about next year gets me so excited ????????
— Taylor Anderson (@tayanderson11) March 27, 2014
Rather open-ended, vague and innocuous, yes? Nothing in there says “hey, my boyfriend is leaving Michigan early to declare for the NBA Draft.” Yet, we still saw internet blog posts in this exact vein being produced. Talk about jumping the gun.
Like Chicago Bulls Head Coach Tom Thibodeau says “Do. Your. Job.”
I have no doubt Stauskas will likely forgo his eligibility in Ann Arbor and declare early for the draft, because he’s a rock solid first round prospect. And quite possibly a lottery pick. Therefore, it’s a no-brainer decision that he should leave early. However, this tweet says absolutely nothing about any of that.
The sports blogosphere and social media flipped out. Leading to this:
I’m gonna start blocking people
— Taylor Anderson (@tayanderson11) March 28, 2014
Just to clarify to all speculation.. I’m excited for next year because my family is moving. As you can see from my previous tweets.
— Taylor Anderson (@tayanderson11) March 28, 2014
So there you go. Those of you who overly jumped the gun and over-analyzed her tweets…you need to get out more! Hey, this is the first time we’ve not seen any snow and ice on the ground here in the upper midwest since….19 months ago approximately?
Go do something outside. But before you do, share this post with your social media, to increase my page views totals. And you will too, because here it has two more pictures of Taylor Anderson that were not even remotely necessary to advance the news value of this post.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent commentator on national talk radio. The former NBC Chicago and Washington Times contributor has also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)