We seldom drift into the hazy atmosphere where sports and politics overlap, but the University of Tennessee's men's basketball program just entered the conversation with a tongue-in-cheek move. The school's sports information department came up with a good one at the expense of one of Donald Trump's aides.
The genesis for this comes from Sunday's episode of Meet the Press, which brought on a phrase that has since gone viral, hashtag and all: "Alternative facts."
Kellyanne Conway, former Trump campaign manager and current adviser to the president, used the term to parry the accurate, widespread reporting on the crowd size at Friday's presidential inauguration.
With that, the Internet has gone wild with #alternativefacts humor. And now this from Tennessee's game notes in advance of the Vols' home game Tuesday night against Kentucky.
Tennessee basketball capitalizes on current events by putting its own "alternative facts" in its game notes pic.twitter.com/clXsWlVVdP
— Steve Megargee (@stevemegargee) January 23, 2017
Some of that's pretty funny. I feel like UT didn't totally commit to the bit, though. Only three bullet points? If you're going to go all in, let's reference Rick Barnes' three national titles, Tennessee's 73 alumni who've been inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, Kentucky's 18-game losing streak at UT's Thompson-Boling Arena and, most importantly, remind the world that the Vols have a .917 win percentage all-time against Memphis.
