Alabama finishes game with 3 players after entire bench gets ejected
— -- And then there were three.
Alabama was forced to finish its game against Minnesota in the Barclays Center Classic in Brooklyn with just three players after its entire bench was ejected following a wild scuffle and two of the remaining five players on Alabama were forced to leave the game.
Collin Sexton, Galin Smith and Riley Norris are the three players who played the final 10:41 for Alabama.
But with 1:32 to play, Alabama was down just 83-80. Minnesota ended up winning the game 89-84.
The drama all began when Minnesota's Nate Mason and Alabama's Collin Sexton trash-talked one another after Mason made the Crimson Tide freshman fall on a previous play.
Both players drew technical fouls. A few seconds later, Mason was tossed after he kept talking and picked up another technical foul. Then, Richard Pitino defended him and drew a technical of his own.
Soon after Alabama had taken four consecutive free throws due to the string of Minnesota technical fouls, Dupree McBrayer and Dazon Ingram got tangled up underneath, commencing a shoving match between both teams. Players on Alabama's bench ran onto the floor as officials tried to deal with the chaos.
Once the smoke cleared, officials decided to remove the entire bench and every active player on Alabama's bench walked to the locker room. But officials weren't clear on whether any technical fouls had been assessed. The Gophers did not take any free throws.
With 11:37 to play in the game, Ingram drew his fifth foul. That left just four players on the court for Avery Johnson's squad.
At the 10:41 mark, freshman John Petty fell to the ground and grabbed his ankle after landing awkwardly after a shot. He limped to the bench.
That left Minnesota with five players to Alabama's three the rest of the way.
Although Alabama played the bulk of the second half with only three players, Johnson's squad could have continued with just two, and perhaps only one player, if the situation had demanded it.
In the NCAA rule book, Rule 3, Sec. 1, Article 3 states: "When there is only one player participating for a team, that team shall forfeit unless the referee believes that both teams have an opportunity to win."
Pitino and Johnson both laughed when they talked after the game.
"Collin Sexton could be a single team just by himself," Pitino said after the game about the freshman who finished with 38 points on a 12-for-22 shooting night. "He's that good. Obviously, that's just absurd, the whole experience. ... We were playing really good until it got wacky."
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