Competitive pushing and shoving is a decades-old tradition on Black Friday, and a college basketball game got in on the action this year.
An Urban-Bennett Memorial Classic game between Jacksonville and Robert Morris devolved into chaos Friday when basically every player and coach got involved in a massive on-court brawl. Punches were reportedly thrown and both head coaches needed to be restrained.
Once the melee ended, the referees opted to eject every player from the game except for the ones who were playing at the time of the brawl, leaving both teams to play the remaining time with no substitutions. Per FanSided’s Tristan Freeman, the total number of players to be ejected was 17.
Benches cleared at the Jacksonville-Robert Morris game.
Both benches were ejected, meaning only the 10 players who were on the court before the scuffle will play for the remainder of the second half. pic.twitter.com/0bTpjs87sd
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) November 24, 2023
The spark that seemed to escalate the brawl in an already chippy game was a confrontation between Jacksonville head coach Jordan Mincy and Robert Morris head coach Andy Tool, as more video showed.
Jacksonville went on to win the game, 74-65. Tensions remained as time expired, as the victorious Jacksonville players opted to not shake hands with the remaining Robert Morris players.
Mincy apologized for his team’s conduct after the game:
“You get so caught up in the emotions of the game. We talk to our guys every day about emotional intelligence, but at the same time, we also warn them to have one another’s back, so there’s a fine line. It was a good basketball game; I hate that’s going to be the highlight of the game. They have a great coaching staff, they run really good plays and it’s a blessing to be here and a great tournament to play.”
Toole was a bit more brief on the Robert Morris end:
“Emotional game, guys are competitive, chippy. Unfortunately, wrong time, the media timeout, all of a sudden we cross paths and a couple bumps, and then it just kind of turns into nonsense. Not how we want to behave.”
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