Ex- NBA player Alonzo Mourning expresses his disappointment over U.S-China basketball brawl
Alonzo Mourning has spoken of his discontent on last week’s brawl between a U.S and a Chinese basketball team during a friendly match in Beijing. The US team in question was the Georgetown Hoyas and Mourning being an Alumni of
Georgetown was not impressed.
The game that took place as part of Georgetown’s tour of China to promote sports and cultural ties between the two countries turned sour when it was close to the end. The Chinese team, Bayi Rockets, played a physical style throughout
the match and Georgetown players often did not back down.
A hard foul by a Chinese player sparked the brawl with the score tied at 64-64. The two players who initially started the confrontation were soon joined by their respective teammates and an all out melee broke out on the court.
Players threw punches at one another; hauled each other down and soon people started throwing and even directly hitting chairs. Many people from the crowd joined in on the fracas, so did some members of the benches on both sides.
Coaches finally managed to separate the two sets of players but till then enough damage had been done. The game was abandoned and missiles were thrown from the crowd at the Georgetown players as they headed for the tunnel.
Mourning, a former 7 times All Star and NBA World Champion, is a member of Georgetown’s board of directors. He expressed his dismay at the events in the Beijing Olympic Stadium.
"This was an opportunity for the university to get some global exposure, and this is not the image you want to portray," said Mourning, Tuesday in a press conference.
"But I don't know all the facts and how everything went down. You just hate to see things like that. Just hopefully the thought of it can diminish sooner than later because that's not what the university is about."
"I speak for all of our board members and all of the representatives of the university, and that's not Georgetown and that's not the image we portray," Mourning said.
Another former NBA great and Georgetown Alumni, Patrick Ewing, also condemned the incident. Patrick Ewing, a New York Knicks legend and one of the better centres of the 1990s, said the incident was “unfortunate”.
"You try to move past it," Ewing said.
The day after the brawl head coaches of both sides, accompanied by two players each met to have clear the air talks. Georgetown head coach said afterwards that neither party harboured any ill feeling towards the other and that
Georgetown will continue their tour of China as scheduled.
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