Fight in high school game (Video)
 

NW Indiana Brawl in a high school game.

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Peace

The table announcer said the remainder of the game will be rescheduled. Since that will be a continuation of this game, will they start by shooting the 83 technical fouls I counted? :eek:

I'm not even sure how you diffuse a situation like this. The calling official went INT right away (probably was thinking flagrant) and closed down to the player on the ground. It would take some darn quick thinking by the other refs to keep the benches from exploding, but the coaches have to do a better job of that. In this case it would probably be easier to note the players left on the bench and eject everyone else. That is, if the game is going to be finished which clearly here was not the right option.

Exactly, what could be done to prevent it? I think the majority of brawls or fights there is something leading up to it, but this is one where I would believe it if there was nothing prior to this, and one idiot has a foul like that and it starts the whole thing. The calling official did a great job of immediately signaling, and immediately attempting to keep separation to prevent a brawl, but once it started, not much else you can do.

Just proof to why you have to be prepared in ALL games at ALL levels, because something like this can happen anywhere!

The game was less than 3 minutes old. Not sure there is much you can do in this kind of situation. The play the dark jersey player did to defend the lay-up was dirty beyond belief. The only thing the official in the Trail should have done, is turn around and stop everyone from coming off the bench. Instead he rand to the play and they did not need him there. But other than that, I see not much that could have been done. It was chaos when coaches, players and people in the stands appear to be in this situations.

Peace

Yuck. Looks like all bench personnel came on the court. Cant' tell which players were involved for sure. I'm suspending the game and letting my governing body decide on what should have happened.

lol at the teen who shoots near the end of the video.

That was a dangerous situation. Luckily it didn't end up worse. For the players returning next year I'd suspend them for a couple of games for the new season, to send a message.

If this situation ever happens in a game I am working, I will be doing nothing at all to diffuse the situation. I will be as far away from the action as possible. The only two things I will be doing are keeping myself safe and trying to see which players are involved. Once the fists start flying, the benches clear, and fans become involved, it is a game management situation. It doesn't matter to me in the least who is getting beat, kicked, or punched, as long as it isn't me.

Can I ask where you heard that because there is a sidebar that says the game will not be made up. Also love the police officers quote "I don't want to hear another word. Everyone's going home or you're going with me."

I heard it too. but that will be left to the county/schools to decide. should be cancelled.

I doubt they will make up the game. There are only three weeks before the start of the state tournament and these teams have the potential to meet in the first round (sectional). Seeding is done by random draw so we'll have to wait and see.

It appeared to me that every player from both teams took part in the brawl. That means that they were all disqualified and the only way for the game to continue is if both teams add all new players to the scorebook at the expense of a TF to both teams for adding names to the scorebook.

MTD, Sr.

And since in most if not all states they will all get at least one game suspension, they will likely forfeit their next game as well.

If by some strange circumstance they were allowed to resume the game, I would hope it would be with a closed gym - no fans allowed.

One state in which I work has a bench clearing rule stating that if three or more individuals (illegally) leave the bench area during an altercation that team forfeits the contest. If both teams infringe, a double forfeit is ruled. The game ends right when this happens and the officials are not to continue.

I hereby nominate the official standing just above the top of the key w/ his hands on his hips watching the fight unfold for the "Cool Hand Luke Official of the Year Award"
#myhero

Agreed. This is something that's good to pre-game so the official furthest from the play can try to stop kids from coming on the court and get the numbers of those that do.

In this case, the benches empty so it likely would not have been effective any way. And the real failure is on the coaches. But it is the only thing I see from the officials that could have been done differently.

Sometimes its gonna hit the fan and all you can do is protect yourself and get out of the way.

This clause should be in the rule book for HS. College has replay and more attentive coaches.

Wow,

I've seen a few hard Intentional Fouls like that and most of the time, when the officials step in immediately as they did here, the teams move on with the FTs. I didn't even think the foul was unusually dirty when I watched it, although it was certainly excessive.

Wish all states did this. Makes a lot of sense.

Can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic, but I'm not getting in the middle of a fight in a HS game. Wouldn't expect any of my officials to do so either.

Ugly situation. Good job by the new L in trying to get in there before it escalated. He did everything he could.

There were already at least two armed police officers on site. That's not a common occurrence in my neck of the woods. Maybe it is there or maybe game administration was being proactive.....

S.O.P. in these parts, even for private school games.

I had a bench clearing brawl in a girls game Friday night between the two bottom dwellers of the division. It went from zero to ninety in the span of maybe 5 seconds with both benches clearing and people from the stands (there couldn't have been more than 40 people watching) coming onto the court. There was no time to prevent anything and we just got the hell out of the way till the cops and school admins could get control. Then we forfeited the game since all players (except one who stayed on her bench) were ejected. It was a horrible game from the start and I only wished the fight had broken out in the first quarter so we didn't have to endure almost 4 full quarters of that game (the fight started with 1:50 left in the game).

I agree with the statement at the end...both schools should be embarrassed. I will never understand why people involved in a fight like this are not arrested and charged with assault something. Every person who came out of the stands should be charged. Every kid involved should be charged...

I can't remember the last time I was at a JV or V basketball game without police on site and I've worked in three different states (and I can't remember the last time I saw an unarmed police officer in general).

If true (and I take this information with ALL the grains of salt in existence), then some business should've been taken care of before the start of the game.

If refs had worked the JV game prior the the varsity game (or talked to the JV refs if they were only working the varsity game), they might've been able to get attention of players/coaches during the pregame... the phrase "handing out Ts like candy" comes to mind.

With all that said, however, I do not blame the officials for what happened... sometimes there's just nothing you can do.

On a typical Friday night in my area, that would mean needing 20-40 officers. That's insane. Times that by the number of Tuesdays, Fridays, and add in Saturdays (1/2 normal schedule) in the regular season, and those would be some staggering resource requirements.

How many high schools do you have in one city? I live in a pretty big metro area and the local city's cops are always on site for games. Luckily there were 2 officers on site last Friday night. It's pretty standard operating procedures in every state I've ever worked as well.

Not unusual here either. It's not uncommon to have one or two armed officers at a game, especially at the larger schools or where there is a known rivalry. On occasion we will see more - most I recall having at a game is eight.

I was in a similar situation as the new L in a BV game in the late 90's. 51 seconds into a rivalry game, we had an intentional foul on a fast break layup, and all hell broke loose. It didn't matter that I had closed down and signaled intentional right away...players came off the benches, fans came out of the stands immediately. Fortunately, there were at least a half dozen or more officers in the building that surrounded the court and kept the fans from entering. Order was restored after several ejections and then another during the TF shots, and the game was fine after that.

To JRut's points, sometimes, they've already decided to fight before we show up, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Hopefully the officials will be mailed a check as well.

If I recall correctly, in the early 1960s, NYC's PSAL championships were played in closed gyms, with just the teams and refs present, but no spectators, because of such incidents.

Props to the head of the ihsaa!!
 

Headline from the article: IHSAA ends basketball seasons for Griffith, Hammond

Hat's off to the head of the IHSAA who made this decision. To be completely honest, I'm not sure it's the correct decision, but I respect it, and I admire his courage in canceling the rest of their seasons, including postseason. This will send a message that this stuff will not be tolerated.

Bobby Cox. He's been coming down HARD this year, he rescinded the eligibility of Eron Gordon (Eric Gordon's younger brother) when he tried to transfer to a prep school for "academic reasons". Gordon's parents took it to court and recently won but Cox has been waving the stick around this year for whatever reason. I think it has something to do with his coming down too soft on the Oregon-Davis fight and Ft. Wayne-Arsenal Tech football brawl. Not a great year for Indiana high school sports.

Two H.S. basketball seasons cancelled due to brawl
Prep Rally
Danielle Elliot 16 hours ago
The Indiana High School Athletic Association has cancelled the remainder of the boys' basketball seasons for two high schools that were involved in a massive brawl during a game on Saturday. The IHSAA released a statement explaining the decision on Tuesday.

The fight broke out in the first quarter of the game between Hammond and Griffith, when a Griffith player was fouled as he went up for a dunk. The foul sent him flying into the wall, head first. He collapsed and teammates and opponents at first rushed over to see if he was alright. Within seconds, they started shoving each other, and the benches cleared.


After meeting Tuesday, the IHSAA issued sanctions varying from sportsmanship education for the athletes to a post-season ban and a year-long probation for both teams.

Saturday's game has been ruled a double forfeit. All remaining regular season games are cancelled, at all levels, and both schools will have to pay a $500 fine for each away game left on its schedule – three for Griffith, two for Hammond.

Both teams are suspended from the state tournament. Hammond will still serve as the neutral site for a state sectional game, as scheduled, but will not collect any profits for doing so.

The coaches from each school will have to go to complete a course on proper teaching and modeling behavior, while the student athletes have to take courses on sportsmanship.

The brawl also results in a season-long probation next year.

Further penalties could result, as the police are currently reviewing tapes to attempt to identify any adults that joined the melee.

____
Danielle Elliot is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact her at [email protected] or find her on Twitter.

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http://www.ihsaa.org/Portals/0/ihsaa...-15/021015.pdf

Here is the IHSAA statement mentioned in the article posted above.

Just found out today that the two schools in question sought a court injunction against the IHSAA decision today and the injunction was granted.

Both teams will be playing in the state tournament which starts tomorrow and have a chance to meet again on Monday if they win out.

It did look like the preliminary injunction was issued. I have not seen the written decision, if one, but I wonder what the judge was thinking? Maybe he thought the actions of IHSAA were arbitrary or capricious and not based in precedence of previous actions?

Notwithstanding the Courts, Where are the administrators in this? The schools (at least one) talked about suspensions but then the schools file injunctions?
The community should be embarrassed and the school district or the administration should cancel the program. Great educational message if they don't..

We have had similar situations here. It usually is a player or their parents who file for the injunction, not the school.

I assumed it would have been the parents as well but apparently the schools filed it jointly citing the 4- and 6-games the two teams missed. I guess the judge decided those were enough. The scary thing is that both Griffith and Hammond are 1 and 3 in the sectional and could easily meet in the sectional final.

Well, if they do meet up in the final, I'd expect that a) there will be a large security presence, b) it's possible that fans won't be allowed to attend, and c) the officials will have absolutely zero tolerance for anything that even looks like it might be BS.

That said, I wish the school administrators themselves would shut down the season on their own, rather than making the IHSAA do their dirty work for them.

Griffith made it to the 3A championship game this past Saturday. Wouldn't it figure.....

Griffith's bizarre run to 3A boys title game continues to draw scrutiny

just play the game. Move on from that mess. I thought the punishment was too harsh and they didn't talk to enough people before making a decision.
Both teams will be on good behavior and it will just be about the game as it should be.

Guerin Catholic are currently 1 point favorites versus Griffith, who have won six games in a row to reach the state finals.

Here are some more articles about the situation:

Guerin Catholic coach not happy to be playing Griffith in Class 3A state finals : Preps

Guerin coach says Griffith should not be playing for state title - Post-Tribune

You have betting lines in HS basketball there?

No haha, just a very dedicated couple stats guys who run the state basketball message board and a website dedicated entirely to girls and boys basketball schedules, scores, power rankings, offensive and defensive stats, tournament history, and much much more. I suggest checking it out, I think it's unlike anything else in the country: John Harrell's Indiana High School Basketball.

Here is the link to the predictions for the state finals games. You can see opponents records, total ratings, series meetings, and a points prediction. I think it's pretty cool. The stats ratings are done by a guy named Jeff Sagarin. He also has a college football predictor model which was until recently used as one of the computer polls incorporated into the BCS ranking system.

Griffith lost the state final 56-62, which prevents the IHSAA from potentially stripping their title.

congrats to both schools for a good game.

Class 3A: Holba leads Guerin Catholic past Griffith

Oh, and FYI the Griffith player (#23) seen sucker-punching a kid at 0:31 seconds and then squaring up with him had 17 points and 7 rebounds in the state title game.

The saga continues: Griffith police recommend criminal charges in basketball melee

Wow. Both schools declined to have any form of punishment for these kids? Including refusal to participate in a deferment plan?? Good on the police department then for forwarding the request for charges. I hope the DA will pursue those charges.

What a bunch of hoosiers.

Prosecutor will not file charges: Carter won't file charges in Griffith basketbrawl