Washington, Spokane (AP) – Less than four minutes into the fourth-seeded Tigers’ first-round NCAA Tournament defeat to No. 13 seed Yale on Friday, Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara was tossed for a flagrant 2 foul.
Without Baker-Mazara, Auburn was obviously outmatched, especially in the second half when Yale recovered to win 78-76.
Bruce Pearl, the coach of the Tigers, questioned the officials’ decision to dismiss Baker-Mazara for the foul.
It’s not an easy decision to make.
About five seconds prior, he had been struck, twisted up, and taken a slight elbow.
It was disregarded, so perhaps no one noticed, and then Chad struck him again, according to Pearl. “It wasn’t proper.
Undoubtedly a blatant 1. The official had to decide whether to raise it to a flagrant 2, but it clearly had a significant influence on the result. “Our team was really, really disrupted on both ends of the floor by losing one of our best players, one of our best playmakers, and a key component of our game plan—Chad.”
Less than three minutes had passed when the foul was committed, and after a protracted review by the referees, Baker-Mazara was ultimately sent to the locker room.
“I believe in my boys they got em!!” Baker-Mazara said on social media a short while later.
Replays revealed that when the two were running downcourt, Baker-Mazara looked to elbow August Mahoney of Yale. When play halted with 16:59 remaining, Mahoney sought to draw the referees’ attention right away, and they headed to the replay monitor.
Auburn’s Jaylin Williams stated, “Chad is a big part of our team, even just as another body out there.
” “Chad is a great offensive player who also gets stops and does a variety of other duties for us. Therefore, it greatly grieved us to have him gone.
Baker-Mazara had an average of 10.3 points going into the contest. He didn’t score before being sent off.
At halftime, I had a brief conversation with him, and he seemed upset about it.
He yearned for another chance. However, you don’t,” Pearl remarked. Give Yale credti for a lot of the game’s elements. We gave the ball over much too frequently, and they played excellent defense.
Not that it hides the reality that we were without one of our finest players. He is among our top three or two players.
