St. Bonaventure Fans Storm Court Early, Cost Team the Game

By Johnny Ginter on February 5, 2017 at 9:42 am
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When St. Bonaventure's Matt Mobley hit a three in the final second of their game against VCU to put his team on top by a point, it was more or less a foregone conclusion that the Bonnies would get a clutch win. As it turned out, the roughly half-second remaining ended up making all the difference.

In the ensuing chaos after the made three, VCU's Doug Brooks took the ball from a security guard and inbounded it before the ref had blown his whistle. The result of this was an failed three from VCU, and seeing this, St. Bonaventure fans ended up storming the court.

The problem is that the ball wasn't inbounded properly, and as a result the clock had never started.

VCU coach Will Wade said he asked to the referees to call for a technical foul "because there was still time on the clock when the bench and the students had stormed the floor.

"By rule, that's an administrative technical. We brought that to the attention of the officials, and they called it," Wade said.

While the Atlantic-10 conference decided later that this was in fact the correct call, there is going to be a lot of debate as to who was really at fault; it's unlikely that the fans would've stormed the court had Brooks not improperly inbounded the ball.

In any event, VCU sank the technical foul free throw that resulted from fans rushing the court, and went on to win in overtime. 

Many people will use this as an example of why storming the court is bad. And they will continue to be wrong.


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