Three players ejected after punches thrown during Ohio Valley Conference tournament game
Three players were ejected during an Ohio Valley Conference tournament game between Southern Illinois-Edwardsville and Tennessee-Martin.
On Thursday, SIUE forward DeeJuan Pruitt punched UT Martin’s Rifen Miguel during the first half of action. Miguel ran down the court with his arms raised before Pruitt struck him in the face.
A scuffle ensued and both teams had to be separated. The incident occurred with 4:13 left in the first half. Referees halted play for over 10 minutes before ejecting Pruitt, Miguel and UT Martin forward Jalen Myers from the game.
Miguel received medical attention as he was bleeding from the incident.
Punches were thrown during the Ohio Valley Conference tournament quarterfinal between SIU Edwardsville and UT Martin.
Three players in total were ejected from the game. pic.twitter.com/x0cEFNZc8Y— ESPN (@espn) March 3, 2023
UT Martin played shorthanded the rest of the night when it pulled out an 81-75 victory over SIUE to advance in the OVC Tournament.
"I think when you talk about an array of emotions — we talk about winning looks different every night," UT Martin coach Ryan Ridder said after the game. "If you had told me the last two hours would look like this, I wouldn't have believed you. But at the end of the day, that's a resilient group that found a way to come out shorthanded and get it done."
Despite the scuffle, SIUE head coach Brian Barone applauded the effort of his team.
"Obviously, we wanted to pull it off tonight," Barone said. "We didn't execute as we had the rest of the night down the stretch. We missed some free throws; we missed some layups, and we didn't get the stops we needed."
UT Martin will play Tennessee Tech in the OVC Tournament semifinals on Friday night.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College basketball OVC game halted with ejections after punches thrown