Thabeet Has Already Had a Festive April Fools'

Hasheem Thabeet, UConn's 11-foot center, Twitters away on a Blackberry that has to be the size of a Speak 'n Spell. (The Blackberry Slab: Because Big Hands Get ADD, too.)

If you don't know what Twitter is, it's because you're old, or you have a life, or your attention span is too short even for something that only comes in 140 characters at a time. If that's you, you know we're exactly 75 words into this already, and have lost all focus and gone back to watching trailers for Crank: High Voltage, the finest film ever made featuring a man with an artificial heart clipping a car battery to his own tongue. You go right ahead and do that, because I'm about to break my segue bone by snapping it on that Jason Statham reference.

Segue: but it was Thabeet who was stopping people's hearts last night! (Ducks thrown garbage, shoes.) Thabeet posted a message on Twitter announcing that he was going to have to miss the Final Four thanks to a failed drug test. It looked like this:

Then, a few minutes later, Thabeet cleared it up, saying it was an April Fools' joke.

Thabeet posted the gag on his Facebook and Twitter statuses, causing a brief ripple among UConn fans online (who seemed to get it, and take it in stride) and also ensuring that Sunday's Sports Reporters will feature Mike Lupica and Mitch Albom saying VERY SERIOUS THINGS about what the Tweety Thingy and MyFace or whatever are doing to our precious young athletes.(VERY SERIOUS="completely uninformed but very sanctimonious and loud.")

In the meantime, congratulations on your Jason Statham-like quickness with both the gag and its tidy reveal, Mr. Thabeet. Not only do you understand every April Fools' joke has to have a bit of danger to it, but you also have provided something for old sportswriters to fill easy column space with for the next week -- after you explain all of those whoseitwhatsit FaceSpacethingys to them, of course. Also, you could have scared Jim Calhoun back into the hospital, but I'd bet you any amount of money Calhoun has no idea what Twitter is, and frankly doesn't care unless it can block a shot, pass, rebound, or help him deflect allegations of improper recruiting.

(HT: The Arena)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.