Long Beach State Sports : Re: Weird situation with Shaq Bender

Seen Bender upset once before. I think under Acker we'll always have a guy or two who can't stand the barking. If he's having issues with his PT, he needs to make shots and defend, and I suggest he stop jacking up ill advised deep shots.

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I’ve never seen him as a share the ball team player. When we beat Northridge he jacked up 9 threes and made one. He started to do the same last night and got yanked (as he should have).

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Shaq Bender appeared to be upset about something during the first TV timeout in the second half tonight. DMX and Christian Jones were trying to tone the situation down. But it didn't work, and Bender was walked off the court to the locker room by an assistant coach. He never came back.

I don't want to presume what happened. But Bender took two really bad shots in the first half, then never got back in the game...Even as our offense floundered. If I had to guess, he was upset about not playing. But I don't know, and don't want to assign that emotion to him unfairly.

Either way, just sharing here in case anyone knows anything. Hope he's doing OK. But also — being that type of distraction when your team is fighting in a tough conference road game is a bad look.