Gonzaga/St. Mary's Ending
 

Anyone see it? Here's what happened:

St. Mary's is up 5, and gets a rebound with about 10 seconds to go. They get the ball up court and dump it in for a dunk. Clock stops with 1 second left, and St. Mary's now has a 7 point lead. Fans storm the court. Gonzaga players and coach head off the floor. Officials are blowing their whistles. It takes a couple minutes, but finally the PA Announcer gets everyone to clear the court. Out comes Gonzaga. Technical foul is assessed against the crowd. Gonzaga player hits both FTs. Ball is given to St. Mary's for a throw in. Clock expires. Fans rush the court again.

Why did the officials feel this was necessary? Seemed rather silly to me.

Shouldn't the ball have been given to the Zags for this throw-in?

The game wasn't over. The ball was dead and the clock was stopped with a second left on it. The celebration delayed the resumption of the game. They had to finish the game, and they had to assess the T once the crowd delayed the game. You can't just NOT finish the game.

My only question is why St. Mary's got the ball after the T. Didn't they just score on a dunk? Gonzaga should have gotten the ball.

Oh wait, yes, and it was, at the far end of the court.

Why did St Mary's get the ball for the throw-in?

It would have been very interesting if the lead was 5 points before the technical free throws.

If this was a 1 point game would the officials still assess a technical foul against St Marys?

The announcers made this same point.

SportsCenter keeps showing this clip this morning.
The NCAA put out a memo a couple of seasons ago on this. The officials followed it to the letter. I believe that what caused the memo was the FSU/Duke situation.

It was necessary b/c that is what the rulebook tells the officials to do.

Which was handled correctly by-the-way.

I was thinking the Zags should throw it in and immediately call timeout. The idiot fans would probably rush the court again. 2 more FTs and a half-court three, then win in OT.

Gonzaga was out of Timeouts by this time.

It's incidents like this that have to make you wonder what the Vegas line on this game was, and did the Technical affect anything there.

why was it needed to bring the team back out and finish the game?

very easy, there was still time remaining on the clock. can you imagine the beating this crew would take if SportsCenter was showing that there was time left on the clock and the officials allowed everyone to just leave the floor and go wild? I can.

The technical is pretty common procedure at that level and YES the officials would still give one to St. Mary's if it was a one point game.

Yes, but I also believe that if this was a 1 point game, no one would have stormed the floor early, and Gonzaga would have made a faster effort to get to the ball and throw it inbounds for a game winning try.

Wouldn't it be something if the fans rush the court, but Gonzaga was only down by one?

The line did not matter. The Zags were the favorite.