‘It should have been avoided’: K-State’s Bruce Weber laments final seconds before brawl
Bruce Weber was standing at midcourt, shaking hands with Bill Self when a brawl broke out between the Jayhawks and Wildcats under the basket in the final second of an 81-60 KU victory on Tuesday at Allen Fieldhouse.
The Kansas State basketball coach was so far away from the fight that he didn’t see how it started or know who was involved by the time he spoke at his postgame news conference.
Still, he took blame for everything that transpired.
“It’s probably my fault,” Weber said. “I had told them not to foul. I had told them to back off, but the kids are young guys. They want to play hard. They were disappointed and frustrated. You don’t want to take that fire out of their belly. You have got to handle it right. I guess it created a bad thing.”
The bad blood between K-State and KU began when Wildcats freshman DaJuan Gordon swiped the ball away from Jayhawks forward Silvio De Sousa as he attempted to dribble out the final seconds of a game that had already been decided. Gordon then took the ball to the basket and tried to finish the night with a layup. De Sousa recovered in time to block Gordon’s shot with one second remaining on the clock.
Then De Sousa towered over Gordon, who had been knocked to the floor, and said some words. A handful of K-State teammates came to Gordon and then a full-fledged fight broke out behind the basket, forever turning the focus away from another ho-hum Sunflower Showdown victory for the Jayhawks to a memorable melee between bitter rivals.
Injured K-State reserve James Love came off the bench and jumped at De Sousa. Then De Sousa started throwing punches. Next, a mob of players from both teams went spilling into the handicap seating area behind press row and the basket. At one point, things got so ugly that De Sousa picked up a stool and looked as though he was going to swing it.
Weber called it “disappointing.” Self called it an “embarrassment.”
It was an ugly scene for both sides. Suspensions and other penalties are likely on the way. Self on Wednesday said he was suspending De Sousa indefinitely.
“It should have been avoided,” Weber said. “It’s my fault. We came here wanting to have a game and compete and we didn’t compete like we needed to. There was probably some frustration, especially the young guys. You wish it would have ended a little different and it didn’t. That’s sad.”
Few others were blaming Weber for the incident.
The way Gordon ended the game is up for debate, but there is also nothing scandalous about playing until the final whistle, especially when your team is trailing by 22 points.
This felt different from past games between K-State and KU that ended with hurt feelings when former Jayhawks guard Brennan Greene padded his stats with two meaningless points at the end of a lopsided victory and former Wildcats guard Barry Brown responded by doing the exact same thing last season.
“If you have the lead and the other team quits guarding, obviously you don’t go score,” Self said. “If the team is behind and you teach your kids to play to the whistle or play the possession, I don’t think you should take total offense to anything that transpires.
“I don’t know that it is the right thing to do, but I am not going to place any blame on Gordon going and taking his ball. Silvio knew he was being defended and he took his ball. The way Silvio reacted to taking his ball, going down and blocking his shot, was all fair game. The horn hadn’t gone off yet.
“Everything that happened after that is obviously what set things off. I’m not going to take any offense to that. Do I think it’s right? It probably depends on the situation. But you have been in enough situations and enough hostile environments that you should be mature enough to handle it, no matter what is thrown at you at the end of the game.”
Weber called the throwdown at the end of Sunflower Showdown a “learning experience” that he hopes his team can avoid in future games.
That means playing hard, but also smart, until the final buzzer sounds.
“All we talk about is act right, treat people right, play the right way,” Weber said. “That has been our way at K-State. I don’t know if Coach (Bill) Snyder said it, but that is how he brought his guys along. That is what makes K-State special.”
This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 9:57 PM with the headline "‘It should have been avoided’: K-State’s Bruce Weber laments final seconds before brawl."