Stephen F. Austin Coughs Up Late Lead, Coach Seems to Somehow Blame Millennials

Stephen F. Austin gave texas tech all it could handle last night before falling short, 70-60. The 14th-seeded Lumberjacks had a seven-point lead with 10 minutes to play but were simply overpowered by the Red Raiders. The better team surviving a scare to advance over a plucky underdog is standard opening round stuff.

So it’s a bit weird that SFA coach Kyle Keller appeared to put some of the blame on — squints — Millennials during his postgame availability.

" “…the Millennials today, they don’t even watch college basketball,’’ he said Thursday night after Stephen F. Austin lost to Texas Tech in the first round of the NCAA tournament. “A lot of our guys didn’t even know who those cats (Texas Tech players) were because they don’t watch the game. They’re on their phone and doing that kind of stuff. “I hate to say it, but as much as you or I or anybody in here watches the games, they don’t. Or the NBA. They might watch the slam-dunk contest in February on TNT or whatever, but that’s about the extent of it.” "

Keller, clearly believing he was proving something, continued.

" “If I don’t read it and study it and learn and try to figure these kids out, I have no chance to coach… Because the way I was taught as a child was, ‘Hey, you are going to eat what is on your plate, if not, you’re going to sit here.’ I had to sit at the kitchen table one Saturday afternoon because I didn’t want to eat green beans or salmon patties. “So we have a lot of green beans on our team meals, and I tell that story to our guys. But you have to adjust. You’d better learn to give and some take with these kids, I think.’’ "

Interestingly enough, Pew Research has set the cutoff for a Millennial as birth year 1996, meaning a majority of players in the NCAA Tournament don’t qualify as such. They are, instead, Generation Z, the next group that will be used as universal scapegoats.