Cassell Coliseum, home of Virginia Tech basketball, is undergoing some renovations this summer. When the first set of pictures were released on Twitter from @vthokie, webmaster for HokieSports.com, there was some mixed, but mostly positive, reactions, as the court featured a silhouette of the facade of Burress Hall.
Since the cat is out of the bag now, here’s some pics. Still lots more to come. #CassellFloor #Hokies pic.twitter.com/qCnhJxoEPr
— Damian Salas (@vthokie) July 28, 2017
I’m not usually a big fan of the cluttered court look, but when this came out, I thought it was classy. Nothing too flashy, like Oregon’s ridiculously ugly Matthew Knight Arena floor, but in fact, kind of nice. (Internet trolls, go elsewhere; I’ve already been chastised on the Twitters.)
But days later, @TTTHokie, whose Twitter profile says he works for the Virginia Tech Athletic Fund, tweeted out this picture showing the basketball court in all of its lego glory:
We had to include a screenshot instead of the tweet itself, because the picture appears to have drawn so much rage and ridicule that it needed to be taken down.
We have questions. We have so many questions. Luckily, we didn’t have to articulate any of them, because Twitter, led by Super Bowl Champion and former Cavalier Chris Long, kicked it off for us.
Hokie fans, defend this w/o bringing up football. Looks like the interior of a maroon '83 grand marquis meets Bowser's castle. https://t.co/LCfA1oBGFy
— Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) August 1, 2017
He was joined by former Hoo George Adeosun.
this looks like a Mario 64 deleted scene https://t.co/I7sxpaENnm
— George? (@realwords) August 2, 2017
And then on came the commentariat.
It appears they were inspired by my children's fake bricks pic.twitter.com/bYR6KuCv7r
— Ed Marut (@emarut) August 1, 2017
"I'm sorry, but your basketball team is in another castle"
— BRAK FLAG TV PARTY (@YinkaDoubleDare) August 1, 2017
— Steve Minard (@MusicManMinard) August 1, 2017
Just wait until they add in the stencil of their student dorms... pic.twitter.com/diAeIqw4kM
— Rick Fin (@Fin13Dog) August 2, 2017
Okay, but you made it sound cool and this just looks terrible
— Jennifer Green (@JelitaJane) August 1, 2017
@TTTHokie it looks like bricks around the court. That'd make sense being it's at VT.
— Ambrose Ronson (@ambrose_ronson) August 1, 2017
Even non-Hoos got in on the action.
I ain't saying, I'm just saying... pic.twitter.com/YbumjCEwi0
— -__- (@epark88) August 2, 2017
Alright. We all know what the intent is there. The Hokie Stone. We get it. It looks super cool. Like, super.
And if you look closely, you’ll see that the picture is most likely (hopefully, for their sake), of a half-completed sideline and baseline, considering you still see blue painter’s tape to mark the lines that will likely be painted in.
The tweet and picture were deleted not long after it was originally posted -- maybe Virginia Tech asked him to delete it, or maybe he just got tired of the constant ridicule, we can only conjecture. Either way, the most amusing part was watching the Virginia Tech faithful attempt to defend what’s objectively an abomination for all eyeballs to see.
My favorite exchange was this one.