By Les Johns

The UK women’s basketball players have been banned from tweeting.

“I think Twitter is a great information sharing and gathering tool,” said UK head coach Matthew Mitchell.  “We are just gathering more than sharing right now.”

The ban seems to have began on Oct. 26. Senior guard Amber Smith tweeted nine times on Oct. 25.

“It was different (not being allowed to tweet), especially in the beginning,” Smith said. “But we’ve gotten used to it. It’s fine.”

Mitchell explained that tweeting posed the potential for distractions during the season.

“I think this team has tremendous opportunity to be a good basketball team and we have to be really focused to play this way,” Mitchell said.

He said that he never hears when an athlete tweets something great.

“We hear when an they (an athlete) tweets something dumb,” said Mitchell. “Thank God I didn’t have Twitter when I was that age, because there would have been a lot of dumb stuff said.”

Senior Keyla Snowden said it was tough to adjust since she has been active on social media sites through her high school and college years.

“Eventually we’ll be able to get back on,” Snowden said.  “We’re not really focused on social media, we’re focused on having a great season.”