YouTuber 'Young Mantis' Almost Successfully Subbed Into A D1 College Basketball Game

A YouTuber who goes by "Young Mantis" created some epic content for his channel at a college basketball game.

The Indiana native with roughly 53,000 subscribers attended a IUPUI men’s basketball game against Lindenwood. With just under 90 seconds to play in the home team’s 73-67 loss, Jaguars guard Jlynn Counter stepped up to the line to shoot free throws. That’s when LeBron James tried to check in for IUPUI as a super-sub to save the game.

Except, it wasn’t the NBA superstar. Young Mantis donned a James jersey from his Miami Heat days and went to the scorer’s table. 

The attempt almost worked. His Heat jersey featured a similar color scheme to the Jaguars’ uniforms. Furthermore, hardly anyone showed up for the unheralded game. If a shenanigan was going to happen, it would have been at this game.

Unfortunately, the referees noticed the fan’s prank attempt (aren’t those refs always ruining the fun?). They signaled for security, who then escorted him out of the game. 

Naturally, he had his own camera crew record the moment for his channel. While the game broadcast captured the incident, it didn’t catch IUPUI head coach Matt Crenshaw having a rather funny exchange with the YouTuber.

Frankly, I applaud the Young Mantis’ content creation attempt. Sure, it caused a bit of a disruption, and likely threw off Counter's rhythm (he went 1-of-2 at the line). But at least he didn’t do something truly disruptive.

He didn’t try to grab a selfie with one of the players, and he didn’t streak (thank goodness). Instead, he left tried to sub in the right way - by checking with the scorer first. You’ve gotta applaud a man who respects the game.