Women's Soccer Star Suspended For Sandusky Tweets And The Big Finish

Brian: On Thursday, Boston College women's soccer star Stephanie McCaffrey made headlines for all the wrong reasons with her insensitive Tweets about Penn State and the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal. The women face the Nittany Lions in the second round of the NCAA Tournament today.

We won't republish those Tweets here. You can read them elsewhere if you'd like. McCaffrey's Tweets as well as her Twitter account have since been deleted.

Here's is new Athletic Director Brad Bates statement on the incident:

The student-athlete used very poor judgment and exhibited insensitivity towards Penn State and the abuse victims, for which she apologizes.

This type of behavior is not tolerated among our student-athletes.

Miss McCaffrey has been suspended from the team and will not participate in Friday's game.

Unfortunately this is the second time we've discussed player Tweets this fall. Unlike the BC football and hockey programs, men's basketball coach Steve Donahue prohibits players from Tweeting. Two questions: did you like how Bates handled this situation, and what steps should be taken by either the athletic department or individual program head coaches to prevent similar abuses of the popular social media platform?

Jeff: This incident was quite embarrassing for McCaffrey and the school. The ladies went on to lose 5-2 to Penn State without McCaffrey on the field, but handling social media platforms is the issue here.

I don't think Bates did anything that was not fairly obvious to do. McCaffrey had to be suspended for this game and I know that some people think she should be kicked off the team entirely and I can't tell them they are wrong. Women's soccer is clearly a non-revenue sport, so as an alumni and a donor, while I would love to see the women's soccer team make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament every year, I'd much rather that the girls on that team not embarrass themselves or Boston College on or off the field. Ideally, I don't want any of the scholarship athletes at BC to embarrass themselves or the school but at least in the revenue sports, players might find themselves in some tough situations they didn't really bring upon themselves. McCaffrey brought this entire incident upon herself. She sought attention in all the wrong ways and if it ends up costing her a place on the soccer team, I am OK with that.

Boston College does need to do something with its athletes and regulating their use of social media. Twitter seems to be the easiest was to get in trouble because if you have a public account, anyone can follow you. The least BC can do at this point is have mandatory social media classes for athletes and they could go to banning twitter accounts for all athletes.

Big Finish

Brian: The men's soccer team fell to Northeastern 1-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday. Relatively disappointing season for the men this year, no?

Jeff: Yes, for a team who started the season ranked, I think just making the tournament and not winning a game is falling short of expectations.

Jeff: Losses for both soccer teams and two losses for the men's basketball team in the last 48 hours. Which loss is most disappointing?

Brian: I didn't expect either soccer team to make a deep NCAA Tournament run. Gotta go with the Dayton loss in men's hoops; mostly due to the way in which they lost.

Brian: The players sound generally supportive of Deuce Finch in today's Globe. Will he have a big day on the ground tomorrow?

Jeff: He will have a bigger day than any other BC player on the ground.

Jeff: The hockey team overcame a 3 goal deficit to beat Merrimack. It feels right now that neither our basketball team nor our football team have the ability to win once down a few possessions. How many years until both programs can at least overcome some adversity?

Brian: I can't even venture a guess. Hopefully it'll be just a few years for football under a new coach.

Brian: The women's basketball team defeated BYU to move to 2-1 on the season. Pretty good start for the women's team, right?

Jeff: Considering last season, fantastic.

Jeff: C'mon now, where is some love for my 48% effort from the free throw line in Charleston Friday?

Brian: I am very impressed, though I did get a little nervous towards the end there.

Brian: Last one. Where you setting the over/under on this afternoon's attendance for Senior Day vs. Virginia Tech?

Jeff: 37,500. Probably too high though, right? At least the sun should be shining.

Pick 5

Jeff (4-1 last week, 27-28 overall):

Temple Owls (+3) at Army Black Knights
Florida St. Seminoles (-31) at Maryland Terrapins
Virginia Tech Hokies at Boston College Eagles (+10)
Duke Blue Devils (+13.5) at Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Kansas St. Wildcats (-12.5) at Baylor Bears

Brian (4-1 last week, 29-26 overall):

Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Notre Dame Fighting Irish (-24)
Oklahoma Sooners (-11) at West Virginia Mountaineers
Kent St. Golden Flashes (+2) at Bowling Green Falcons
Northwestern Wildcats (+7) at Michigan St. Spartans
California Golden Bears at Oregon St. Beavers (-14.5)

ATL (1-0 last week, 3-8 overall):