Georgetown Hoyas Brawl: More Details Emerge From Fight-Marred Game In China

The Georgetown basketball fight in China has produced a slew of scary photos and given the Hoyas’ international tour a premature black eye. But the Washington Post’s Gene Wang, in China to follow John Thompson III’s team, describes a “melee” between the Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets that absolves no party and involves chairs and water bottles being thrown.

Georgetown senior center Henry Sims had a chair tossed at him by an unidentified person, and freshman forward Moses Ayegba, who was wearing a brace on his sore right ankle, walked onto the court with a chair in his right hand. According to Georgetown officials, Ayegba had been struck, prompting him to grab a chair in self-defense.The fight was ignited by a foul on Georgetown’s Jason Clark called on Rockets player Hu Ke. Clark was displeased with the foul, and engaged Ke in a shoving match; that then escalated as players from both teams flooded the court, leaving referees and Chinese police unable to intervene.

The fight ended when Thompson marshaled his staff to remove his players from the court. Wang reports that spectators rained water bottles on the Hoyas as they departed.

And the fourth quarter brawl wasn’t just an isolated incident. Georgetown entered the second half with a stunning 28 fouls, benches had cleared once before the fight broke out, and play had to be halted twice in the third quarter, once after Rockets player Xu Zhonghao berated Thompson and again after a technical foul on another Rockets player, Wang Lei.

The Hoyas were supposed to travel to Shanghai on Friday to continue their tour of China, but it is unclear whether they will.

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