Conference Investigating Wild, WWE-Style Brawl In DII Game

Most basketbrawls get mopped up shortly after they start. Refs and coaches intervene before things boil over into a full-blown free-for-all and the perpetrators are quickly subdued. Most never escalate to the point that a fan takes a chair to the head of a player who is currently being, but that’s exactly what happened last weekend during a game between DII schools LeMoyne-Owen and Lane College.

(Here’s that chair shot again.)

Tensions were so high between the two schools that the fight apparently broke out in the first quarter after a player was tripped. The game was postponed after the fight and will be made up later. The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference announced on Tuesday that they were investigating the incident and working with the Memphis Police Department:

“Such behavior will not be tolerated in our league under any circumstances,” SIAC Commissioner Greg Moore said in a release. “As a consequence, and at the conclusion of our internal investigation, all responsible parties in connection with this incident shall be subject to the most severe sanctions authorized by the conference rules and bylaws.”

A LeMoyne-Owen spokeswoman said that the chair guy was not a student at LOC, while also adding that decking someone with a folding chair is “not welcomed on campus.”