As Illinois prepared for its Big Ten Tournament opener, coach Brad Underwood on Wednesday addressed allegations of inappropriate taunts by Illini fans aimed at Iowa player Kris Murray.
Murray’s father, Kenyon Murray, tweeted after Sunday’s game at the State Farm Center in Champaign that he left messages with the athletic directors and basketball staffs of Illinois and Iowa after Kris “was told to go ‘(expletive) kill yourself.’ ”
“Say what you want about the game or how my kid played, but this is ….” Kenyon Murray tweeted, adding an emoji for saying something obscene.
Kenyon Murray later tweeted he was not condemning all Illini fans but hoping to spread awareness that mental health issues are a serious matter and there was “no room for this kind of vitriol.” On Tuesday, Murray tweeted that he had spoken with the Illinois athletic department and thanked them for “embracing me and opening a door to help those who need it.”
Murray has two sons playing for the Hawkeyes, Kris and Keegan. Iowa plays its first Big Ten Tournament game Thursday in Indianapolis against the winner of Wednesday’s first-round matchup between Northwestern and Nebraska.
Underwood apologized to the Murrays and said some comments went “too far.”
“We’ve got a very, very good fan base,” Underwood said Wednesday morning during a teleconference. “We’ve got a passionate fan base. They’re the best in the country. And yet we want to do things with a certain level of class in your program. We’ve had contact with the Murrays.
“We don’t ever want to cross a line. For the most part, it’s a few individuals. It happens way too often. We saw a fight break out in an NCAA conference tournament (between fans of Bryant and Wagner on Tuesday in the NEC championship game). It’s becoming too common, and our program has to be way above that. …
“Some of those comments were taking it too far. We can’t be that. We’re better than that. We’re the University of Illinois. We want them to be passionate and have fun.”
The Illini beat Iowa 74-72 to win a share of the Big Ten regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. The Illini earned a double-bye and will face the winner of Thursday’s Michigan-Indiana game in the first quarterfinal Friday (10:30 a.m., BTN).
Ohio State star E.J. Liddell recently chided Illini fans after a Buckeyes win in Champaign, tweeting that he “loved the boos and the chants” and calling it a “great environment.”
“But I can’t even explain how rude and disrespectful some fans were,” Liddell added. “Know your place. I have no hard feelings with that university but man y’all are crazy as hell if you think you can talk to an athlete any kind of way.”
Underwood acknowledged fan behavior is out of line at some college arenas and said it’s even worse on social media.
“What our players receive in social media is 100 times worse than stuff that gets said in our arena,” he said. “We’ve talked to our players about ignoring that and not listening. … I’m sorry for the Murrays that they had to experience that in our building. It’s something we’ll continue to address as we move into home games next year.”