Yancy Gates said after practice today that he deserved to be suspended for the Pitt game, and that Mick Cronin was just doing what he thought was best for him and for the team.
“It was a bad situation and I handled it wrong,” Gates said. “It was just a big misunderstanding gone bad, a situation made worse than what it was supposed to be, so you just deal with the consequences and try to move on.”
The incident that led to his suspension occurred in practice last week when Gates flared up at an assistant coach.
“I was caught up in the moment,” Gates said, “frustrated with a lot of things, but those are the type of things that you have to overcome being a basketball player. You can’t let them control your emotions. You just try to get through it.”
Gates said he sent several text messages to Cronin on Sunday night, then met with him this morning for a little over an hour.
“I was just basically trying to get it out, trying to get over it and move on,” Gates said. “Things like that, if you let them linger, they just don’t hurt you as an individual player, it hurts the whole group of guys. I don’t want to be the one known as a guy that hurt the team or anything.
“I just wanted to be back around. I didn’t want to make a situation that was already petty even worse. I dealt with my consequences. I missed the Pittsburgh trip. I didn’t complain about it. I made a mistake. When you make a mistake you have to deal with the consequences, so I just dealt with it and he let me come back to practice this morning.”
Stand up guy