A US college basketball game ended with both benches brawling and a player wielding a chair as a weapon after an incident in the final second sparked a violent conclusion to the University of Kansas’s 81-60 win over Kansas State.
The Jayhawks’ Silvio De Sousa stared down the Wildcats’ DaJuan Gordon in a fiery final few minutes to the match which saw both teams shove each other off the court and into the disabled seating area at the university’s Allen Fieldhouse home.
De Sousa blocked the shot while slamming Gordon to the ground, then earned a foul for abusing his opponent in an incident that caused State’s Antonio Gordon and David Sloan to confront him.
That incited uproar from the benches and a scrap in which De Sousa could be seen brandishing a stool above his head while police officers and the coaching teams tried to take control as the accompanying band played on.
The refereeing team consulted screens in an attempt to deduce who was responsible for the violence and what punishments should be applied.
A new rule in college basketball means that matches have to be finished this season, irrespective of the amount of time left in a match.
Only five players from either side played out the remaining tenth-of-a-second of action, as a chorus of boos rang out due to the absence of their dismissed and disgraced players.
Baffled commentators said there was “no point” in the game resuming and speculated that the decision to do so was “probably a gambling thing.”
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Responding to the angry finale, Jeff Long, director of athletics at the university, called the fight “simply unacceptable” and “not reflective of who we are.”
He added that he would review the ruckus alongside coach Bill Self, league organizers the Big 12, and Kansas State to decide “appropriate consequences”.