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On Thursday, Florida State’s campus was the location of the latest mass shooting in America, which left two people dead and six more injured. It’s safe to assume that was the reason a college basketball player looking to transfer canceled his trip to Tallahassee, but that fairly crucial bit of context was somehow absent from a tweet Jon Rothstein sent out on Thursday.
It’s hard to become an accomplished insider without being the kind of person who eats, sleeps, and breathes the sport you dedicate most of your life to covering, and Jon Rothstein is certainly no exception.
Rothstein has worked for CBS Sports since 2010 while cementing himself as the college basketball version of the likes of Adrian Wojnarowski and Adam Schefter.
Prior to the start of March Madness, The Athletic published a great piece that summed up the essence of the wildly idiosyncratic personality who has cemented himself as the premier source for scoops concerning the college basketball world thanks to his tireless devotion to that particular realm.
On Thursday, Rothstein sent out a tweet after learning Aidan Mahaney, the UConn guard who’s decided to transfer after a single season with the Huskies, was planning on visiting Florida Atlantic and Florida State this weekend as he continues to explore his options.
That was posted five hours before Rothstein shared an update after Mahaney informed him he’d called off his trip to FSU, although the follow-up didn’t specify what motivated that decision.
UConn transfer Aidan Mahaney tells me that he no longer plans to visit Florida State this weekend. https://t.co/FgQZSoBzUc
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) April 17, 2025
I guess you could argue the tweet didn’t need any context when you consider anyone who’d been paying attention to the news on Thursday was painfully aware it stemmed from the mass shooting that was perpetrated at Florida State before the 20-year-old student charged with killing two people and injuring six others was taken into custody.
FSU subsequently canceled home athletic events that had been scheduled through Sunday, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that was almost certainly the reason Mahaney called off the visit.
Rothstein’s mentions were flooded by critics who correctly pointed out he probably should have mentioned the circumstances surrounding the cancellation, but he hasn’t acknowledged the link as of this writing.