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Normally when teams go over to China everyone is hugging Pandas and watching Jackie Chan movies.
Unless you are the Georgetown Hoyas and you channel your inner Brooklyn Brawler. The reports are a little iffy, but it appears they didn’t start the brawl but they ended it.
The whole thing came undone in the third. About two minutes in, the ridiculously lopsided foul calls continued (we were in the bonus again 2 1/2 minutes in) and the first real shoving match kicked off over a loose ball. The players on the court separated each other pretty quickly, but then the craziest thing I’ve ever seen happened- one of the Bayi big men got in JT3’s face and almost took a swing. He was so shocked he didn’t know what to do. So that upped the ante a bit.
Everyone on the other side of the court started fighting as well. Brawl spread all over the court, and then off the court. After it kicked off it immediately became possible for the crowd to get involved, and then they did. As we tried to get the team off the court, bottles (plastic ones, thankfully) came out of the crowd at the team and everyone left. Security was there (sort of), but it was more equivalent to mall cop-quality security rather than actual security. The Georgetown staff wanted the security to get on the floor, but honestly these guys didn’t have a clue what to do. They escorted the whole alumni contingent out fairly quickly after that.
It is a good bet that the Hoyas won’t be invited back to Beijing. It does appear they were the victims and just protecting themselves.
Here is what John Thompson III had to say.
According to reports, Fans allegedly threw bottles and chairs at team in 4th quarter of exhibition game, prompting Coach John Thompson III to pull his players off the court.
Thompson addressed the incident in a statement from the University saying,
“Tonight, two great teams played a very competitive game that unfortunately ended after heated exchanges with both teams. We sincerely regret that this situation occurred.
Do we need to call President Obama in?