LOUDONVILLE – Before diving into this weekend’s games, Siena men’s basketball Carmen Maciariello used his weekly media availability on Wednesday to call out abuse of his players on social media.
Maciariello said it happens after “a lot” of games, most recently following losses at Manhattan last Friday and against Niagara on Sunday.
“Obviously, we don’t aim to lose basketball games,” Maciariello said before taking any questions. “But the fact that we have people that want to call out athletes on social media and sent direct messages and post things that are hurtful to my players, it’s really disappointing that people in the world want to hide behind computer screens and text pads and cell phones, right?”
Maciariello referred some of the specifics to Siena assistant athletic director for communications Mike Demos, who monitors the team’s social media accounts.
Demos said the basketball program’s Instagram account gets flooded with profane and racist comments that sometimes tag individual players. Demos, who works quickly to scrub them, said some comments seems to come from either recently created anonymous accounts or “bots” – programs that perform automated, repetitive, pre-defined tasks.
“If anyone has an issue or wants to talk about what we do, I’m readily accessible,” Maciariello said. “I think maybe (UMass head coach) Frank Martin had the same message to his fans with people wanting to say hurtful things about his players and his program, but to send and write hurtful messages about guys if they miss a shot or miss a free throw or think that they’re doing something other than the best they can, shame on them. I think that’s a problem in today’s society, too. People want to hide behind keyboards and computer screens and not act like genuine, real people.”
Maciariello suspected some hostility “probably” comes from online gamblers who lose…
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