A questionable play sparked an all-out brawl during this Atlantic 10 matchup on Friday night.
While Saint Louis (25-2, 13-1 A10) was dribbling out the clock in the final seconds of an 88-75 win over Virginia Commonwealth (21-7, 12-3), Rams guard Nyk Lewis swiped the ball from Billikens junior Quentin Jones and attempted to put up a half-court shot as the buzzer sounded.
As Lewis attempted to shoot the ball, Saint Louis guard Robbie Avila pushed him out of bounds, which ultimately started the benches-clearing fight
Both teams and their respective coaching staffs were shoving each other at center court for a brief moment until officials stepped in to prevent pure chaos from erupting.
“There were no punches thrown,” St. Louis coach Josh Schertz told reporters. “It was a typical basketball fight, a lot of pushing and shoving and nobody did anything.”
Schertz also joked that it was a typical basketball fight in which “everybody’s trying to get held back so they don’t do anything.” He said he didn’t see anything that would be worthy of a suspension for either team.
The teams eventually returned to the court, where Lewis converted on three free throws before the game ended.
Officials disqualified nearly every bench player from both teams, along with Jones and VCU’s Barry Evans.
“I think there’s certainly a healthy intensity, as there should be at the top of the league, right? We’ve got a lot of respect for them. I think they have some respect for us, I assume,” Rams coach Phil Martelli Jr. said. “It’s two tough teams, two very competitive teams, two physical teams. Stuff like that, you wish it didn’t happen, but, yeah, it’s an intense game. It’s an emotional game.”
Officials disqualified nearly every bench player from both teams.
Although it might go under the radar, games between Saint Louis and VCU have gotten chippy in the past, with a wild fight breaking out in the stands when the two schools met last season.
With just over a minute left during the Billikens’ 78-69 win over the Rams on Jan. 29. 2025, fans started tackling each other in the stands, delaying the game’s end by roughly seven minutes.
“You don’t often see this in college basketball, but there is a heck of a brawl going on in the stands,” play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy said then on the CBS Sports broadcast during the fight, according to ESPN.
“The police officers and the security have come over and tried to help out almost immediately to slow it all down,” he added.
— with AP
