Brawl Blemishes Battle of the Bay

In the prior 233 matchups between the Santa Clara men’s basketball team and the University of San Francisco, there haven’t been many situations that made tempers flare and benches clear. But on Feb. 10, seven players were ejected from the game and both head coaches received technical fouls after a fight broke out. 

Last Saturday night at the Hilltop, the Broncos and Dons’ rivalry came to a head when a physical scrum broke out with 11:51 left in the second half. Santa Clara’s Camaron Tongue had just been called for an offensive foul on an illegal screen against San Francisco’s Isaiah Hawthorne. While Hawthorne lay on the floor, the Dons' Marcus Williams came from behind and pushed Tongue to the ground–igniting the brawl for all.

Santa Clara had started without leading scorer Adama-Alpha Bal and lost point guard Brenton Knapper to an injury during the second half. They now had to continue without Christoph Tilly, Carlos Marshall Jr, Jalen Benjamin and Kosy Akametu. 

The West Coast Conference (WCC) handed down a ruling on Monday that suspended Benjamin for the Broncos' next game. No further action was taken against any other Santa Clara or San Francisco players. 

This ruling will deplete Santa Clara’s already thin back line, as Bal’s and Knapper’s status are unknown, leaving Tyeree Bryan and Christian Hammond as the only viable ball handlers on the team. 

In my experience attending, covering and broadcasting games, I had never seen anything close to a fight. Both teams looked like they had bottled up years of tension before releasing it all into what I described–while serving as a play-by-play commentator on KSCU–as a “brawl for all.”

The Broncos simply couldn’t hold on as the game neared to a close, with five of their top eight rotation players either on the bench or in the locker room. What was once a 19-point first-half lead slowly deteriorated until San Francisco’s Jonathan Mogbo hit two clutch free throws with 1.4 seconds remaining, giving the Dons a 71-70 lead. Santa Clara’s full-court last-second landed in the hands of Bryan at the free-throw line, but his shot was short, breaking the hearts of players and the mass of Santa Clara fans that made the trip.