SPOKANE, Wash. — Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara was ejected for a flagrant foul 2 lower than 4 minutes into the fourth-seeded Tigers’ upset loss to No. 13 seed Yale on Friday within the first spherical of the NCAA match.
After a prolonged evaluate, officers introduced the foul towards Baker-Mazara and despatched him to the locker room. A couple of minutes later, Baker-Mazara posted on social media, “I consider in my boys they obtained em!!”
Replays confirmed that Baker-Mazara appeared to throw an elbow towards Yale’s August Mahoney because the pair ran downcourt. Mahoney instantly tried to get the eye of officers, and as soon as play stopped with 16:59 left within the first half, officers went to the replay monitor.
“Clearly, the choice to flagrant 2 Chad Baker, that is a reasonably powerful name,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl stated. “He had gotten hit about 5 seconds earlier, obtained tousled, obtained just a little little bit of an elbow. They let it go — perhaps no one noticed it — and about 5 seconds later, Chad hit him. It was inappropriate, clearly a flagrant 1. The truth that it was elevated to a flagrant 2 was a choice that the official needed to make, but it surely’s clearly an amazing affect on the end result.
“Chad is one in every of our greatest gamers. He is one in every of our best playmakers and was an enormous a part of our recreation plan and so to lose him and that state of affairs was actually, actually disruptive to our crew on each ends of the ground.”
Baker-Mazara averages 10.3 factors per recreation.
Pearl stated he obtained a quick clarification from an official after the decision was made.
“The truth that it was critical perhaps or intentional. Chad lined him up and retaliated, so by the e-book — or if that is the wording they’re going to use as a flagrant 2, but it surely’s had a big impact on the sport,” Pearl stated. “I feel it was flagrant 1. It was intentional, it was extreme — what number of flagrant 2s are there in video games versus flagrant 1s? That’d be dialogue. Let’s simply say of all of the flagrants, in my expertise, 90% perhaps 1s.”
Yale, the Ivy League champions, trailed Auburn 41-34 on the half. The Bulldogs rallied within the second half to tie the sport at 70-all with 2:38 remaining in regulation.
Trailing 72-70, Yale took the lead on a 3 by guard John Poulakidas, who scored a career-high 28 factors within the win.
Auburn had a number of probabilities down the stretch to tie and even win the sport, together with a missed 3-pointer by Ok.D. Johnson on the buzzer.
Yale will face San Diego State within the second spherical on Sunday.
Data from ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and The Related Press was used on this report.