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Twitter’s @TheRealGbinije is none of the above

image courtesy Syracuse Athletics

image courtesy Syracuse Athletics

The Twitterverse is littered with appelations like @RealSkipBayless and @NotTheFakeSVP, and for good reason. Smart-alecks the world round enjoy pretending to be famous people, and according to internet law, if you nab the name first, it’s yours, even if it’s, you know, not really your name.

Beyond that, even some of the so-called "@Real” and "@NotFake” accounts are ersatz. The only way to know which tweets really come from your favorite writers and athletes is to look for the checkmark that notes a verified account. (Side note: should I be offended that nobody out there is pretending to be me?)

With that in mind, if you see anyone claiming to be Syracuse sophomore Michael Gbinije on Twitter, know right now that it’s not him. As the Syracuse Post-Standard is reporting, Gbinije doesn’t even have a Twitter account, so @TheRealGbinije is, well, full of it.

Gbinije, the Duke transfer who sat out this season at SU because of NCAA stipulations, has learned to laugh at these kinds of misrepresentations. He quit Twitter while still at Duke, he said, around the same time the first fake Gbinije account surfaced. TheRealGbinije is fake Gbinije account No. 2.

All this by way of saying that as you search for anything college hoops-related at all during this long off-season, beware your sources. In fact, it’s probably best just to check in with CBT throughout each day if you want the straight scoop on anything.