Following Ohio State’s upset loss at the hands of Oral Roberts in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament, the university reported a serious of death threats received by standout frontcourt player E.J. Liddell. In a post on his Twitter account early on Saturday morning, Liddell showed a pair of Instagram message he received that featured a number of disparaging remarks from anonymous accounts. You can view them here.
“Comments don’t get to me but I just wanna know why,” Liddell tweeted. “I’ve never done anything to anyone in my life to be approached like this.”
According to ESPN’s Myron Medcalf, the university has reached out to police to investigate the messages sent to Liddell, who had 23 points and 14 rebounds in Friday’s game. Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann released a statement in support of his Liddell, saying “These comments, while not from or representative of Ohio State fans, are vile, dangerous and reflect the worst of humanity. EJ is an outstanding young man who had a tremendous sophomore season and he was instrumental in our team’s success. We will take the necessary actions here at the University to address this immediately.” Liddell also received support from former Buckeye standout Jared Sullinger.
Ohio State were the runners-up in the Big Ten Tournament this season, finishing the year with a 21-10 record. Liddell, a sophomore, was second on the team in scoring and tops in rebounding with 16.2 points and 6.7 rebounds in 29.4 minutes per game.