Today’s Xavier-St. John’s game did not end pretty at all. As a matter of fact, it ended up in a fight and its being reported that St. John’s attempted to break into Xavier’s locker room during post-game.
As someone who has walked the hallways of MSG quite a bit, it’s very surprising to hear that St. John’s would attempt to do such a thing. In addition, the locker rooms aren’t too far from one another. It’s pretty odd considering the fact that security in MSG doesn’t play and they run a pretty tight ship.
The whole ordeal began once the game was over. As usual practice, teams shake hands but that’s where the exchange of words occurred. Here’s the details according to Yahoo.
While in line to shake hands following the game, players from both teams erupted. St. John’s Bashir Ahmed shoved Xavier’s Trevon Bluiett, and Ahmed refused to shake hands with Xavier players or staff following the blowout, prompting an exchanging of words.
“Kids kept on talking to our guys,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said in a postgame TV interview. “You know, we pushed our guys away, man. It’s not right.
“You know, I’m really proud of our group because everybody’s been telling us, including some guys on FS1 last night, that with our attention to detail and not being ready to play, I thought our guys were ready.”
The incident may not have ended on the court. Dana O’Neil of The Athletic reported that Big East Conference officials are reviewing security footage at Madison Square Garden, trying to determine if something happened “in the back of the house.”
Big East Tournament officials have responded to these claims.
“We know something happened,” Stu Jackson, the Big East’s senior associate commissioner, told O’Neil. “But at this time, we aren’t really sure exactly what it is.”
Neither Mack or St. John’s coach Chris Mullin said they saw anything happen, and Mack said he “wasn’t aware that anyone was trying to get in his locker room.”
“I’m not going to throw anybody under the bus,” Mack said after the game. “A couple of their guys didn’t want to shake hands. It was squelched very quickly.”
We’ll keep our eye on this as you know that more will be released regarding this topic. Flip the page to see how it happened.