Sunday’s Round of 32 game between the Florida Gators and Iowa Hawkeyes has gotten pretty chippy, with several instances of players running into or tackling one another.
In one instance, Iowa center Alvaro Folgueiras grabbed a defensive rebound, but Florida’s Alex Condon also got his hands on the ball. The two tangled on the floor for control of the ball, and Folgueiras appeared to throw a closed fist at the ball in an attempt to pry it loose from Condon. To the CBS broadcast crew and audience at home, it initially appeared that Folgueiras had thrown a punch at Condon, which many of their teammates might have interpreted as well. The referees attempted to stop further damage, but a swarm of Iowa and Florida players started getting into it as well. The whole fracas led to a double technical foul.
Florida coach Todd Golden was irate to learn that Folgueiras was not being ejected from the game, presumably under the notion that he’d thrown a punch at his player. Golden and Iowa head coach Ben McCollum were also seen getting chippy, lobbing insults at one another.
McCollom then spoke with sideline reporter AJ Ross and shared some thoughts on Golden and his team.
“I don’t know. They were just going for the ball,” McCollum told Ross. “Then, everybody got all sensitive. Then, their people got sensitive. We’re just trying to play ball. It’s whatever. We’ll compete. We’ll fight. We’ll see what happens.”
For whatever it’s worth, CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore agreed with the call on the floor.
“You know what, Tom and Danny, the fact that they had the held ball, which creates a dead ball situation, right?” Steratore said. “So now we’re in a dead-ball situation. If we have physical activity between both players, again, without a punch directed at them, I think you are in a good place to say offsetting dead-ball technical fouls.
“We’re in a dead ball scenario there, so I really think at this point as you said, Dan, you don’t think that there’s that punch thrown to the chest, you have something of that nature, this is probably the best result to put this game in somewhat of a calming fashion to get it back down and let’s go play basketball again.”
We can’t wait to see what goes down at the post-game handshake.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.