When the buzzer sounded for halftime of West Virginia's game against No. 15 Duke Friday, the Mountaineers were down 23–20—and the score was the least of their problems.
In the wake of a shoving match late in the second quarter, the game's referees threw out West Virginia's entire bench on the grounds that they entered the court to participate. That forced the Mountaineers to roll with just five players for the remainder of the contest.
Improbably, West Virginia won the game 57–49 in White Sulphur Springs, W.V., thanks to the heroic efforts of guard Loghan Johnson, guard Riley Makalusky, forward Célia Rivière, guard Sydney Shaw, and guard Sydney Woodley.
Shaw led all scorers with 16 points, helping the Mountaineers outscore the Blue Devils 24–9 in the third quarter.
Such an episode is not without precedent in college basketball's long history. In Nov. 2017, Alabama's men nearly beat Minnesota despite playing 3-on-5 for the final 10 minutes of the contest. In Feb. 1988, a junior college called United Tribes Technical College defeated another junior college called Dakota College at Bottineau playing 3-on-5 for the game's final minute, an episode chronicle in a Grantland essay by legendary nonfiction writer Chuck Klosterman (who was in attendance).
The box score counts 1,210 were in attendance Friday, but that number figures only to grow in the years to come.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as West Virginia Upsets Duke After Entire Bench Ejected Following Shoving Match.
