China Game 2: ends as Hoyas pulled off floor

[PhillyHoya]

Gene Wang called into CSN: www.csnwashington.com/pages/video?PID=bQBO6DXjFluHwDqPeYWrLcfF3xTx3sOi

[Eurostar]

Is that JT3 in the black shirt and pants running into the action and then getting pushed accidentally by #3 Hopkins?

[FLHoya]

Aug 18, 2011 15:20:21 GMT -5 EasyEd said:

The Chinese government just issued the following statement "Certain individuals have published photographs and videos of what they say occurred in a recent basketball game between the Chinese Army team and one visiting from the United States. To ensure this doesn't happen again, all cameras will be confiscated prior to all such future events".

You must be mistaken. Believe this was an announcement made during a Kenner League game.

EDIT: Oh fer goodness sake:

Aug 18, 2011 15:36:32 GMT -5 rosslynhoya said:

It is, sadly, the statement I would expect the AD to release if a Kenner League game had ended in this fashion.

Hoyatalk is almost as hard to keep up with as Miami football boards these days.

[DanMcQ]

Aug 18, 2011 17:15:20 GMT -5 PhillyHoya said:

Gene Wang called into CSN: www.csnwashington.com/pages/video?PID=bQBO6DXjFluHwDqPeYWrLcfF3xTx3sOi

That's as close to confirmation that the team plans to complete the second half of the trip as has been heard anywhere yet.

[swhoya]

Aug 18, 2011 17:09:12 GMT -5 PhillyHoya said:

Aug 18, 2011 17:05:33 GMT -5 nathanhm said:

Have I missed it or has there been no official response from China?

Don't hold your breath.

I should probably just shut up, but again, you do know that there is a time difference, right? It's 6:20 in the morning there.

For those saying there won't be an apology, please note this:

"Although they have yet to issue one for Thursday's incident, the CBA has issued an apology for the behavior of its players after each of the past altercations."

www.nbcwashington.com/blogs/capital-games/Georgetown-Brawl-Not-The-First-For-China-128022218.html?update

Maybe we should wait and see how this plays out before we start throwing about uninformed comments.

[KirbyKeger]

20 pages in one day. Yikes.

[superan]

Aug 18, 2011 17:26:09 GMT -5 KirbyKeger said:

20 pages in one day. Yikes.

can we please have this thread be the one that beats latavious'?

[KirbyKeger]

The story was just on ABC world news. They used excerpts of a phone conversation with Gene Wang. Overall the story favored us. "The Chinese were getting embarrassed by a college team and couldn't win on the court, so they decided to buck up and get physical. They crossed the line."

Wang also noted that it was the worst officiating job that he had ever seen.

[Nevada Hoya]

Aug 18, 2011 17:24:08 GMT -5 DanMcQ said:

Aug 18, 2011 17:15:20 GMT -5 PhillyHoya said:

Gene Wang called into CSN: www.csnwashington.com/pages/video?PID=bQBO6DXjFluHwDqPeYWrLcfF3xTx3sOi

That's as close to confirmation that the team plans to complete the second half of the trip as has been heard anywhere yet.

I liked the part where GW thought that maybe this big pro team from China was embarrassed from losing to a team of mainly freshmen and sophomores.

I think we should complete the trip, but not play this team again.

[SirSaxa]

Brian Williams just covered the story on NBC News. They showed the two still photos - -of Jason on the ground being stomped, and the 4-5 Hoyas trying to defend him. Pretty neutral on their message.

[PushyGuyFanClub]

Of course they were embarrassed. This was the Army team. They are an extension of the government. It is embarrassing when they don't win the domestic league, let alone get blown off the court by a US team (and there was probably racial tension as well knowing what I know about Chinese working-class attitudes). You can be sure they wanted to keep the score close so that the box score looked ok in the newspapers the next day -- and I'm sure their coach was managing for that outcome and informed the refs to think that way as well. Heck, the police wouldn't even intervene (they are lower rank than PLA).

Of course, the more you try to control outcomes, the more likely something is to get out of control -- which is something China's government needs to realize more broadly.

But now all of the domestic China media accounts have been taken down, which leads me to believe the Chinese government is extremely embarrassed. It's a fascinating little story though and embodies what is wrong with China's government (again, this team is an extension of them): They want respectable outcomes without necessarily getting them the hard way.

[MCIGuy]

Just checked out the video. My late observations:

-Not that I needed the video to confirm this, but I didn’t see Jason do anything to deserve an entire bench coming after him. He may have tried to shove an arm away, he may have thrown a low punch. In any case it does not seem as if he connected. At the very least he didn’t appear to do any damage. I could understand though if the Dragons’ player he got into it with objected but I don’t see any justification for the Chinese team running onto the floor to take their pound of flesh. My only explanation is the team was chomping at the bit and looking for any excuse to go all soccer-hooligan on the Hoyas.

-The video doesn’t have the best resolution. When the Hoyas rush to the middle of the court it is too blurry for me to get a true picture but I don’t see any punches thrown by any Hoya at that point (fists raised but not exactly fists thrown). If that’s the case then the Hoyas did exactly what I was asking for; put up a wall around their teammate without trying to escalate the situation. It also goes against Gene Wang’s level-headed writeup that punches were thrown by both sides. Of course he was there live and got a better picture of what went down (certainly didn’t have to rely on grainy video); maybe the Hoyas did throw some counters. And there were some still photos which also seemed to indicate the Hoyas got in their own blows. That was what I was disappointed with the most. But I have to say from the vid I don’t see anything at that moment that Gtown did wrong.

-The most problematic footage involving the Hoyas, IMO, occurred once the fracas rolled out towards the end of the court. Someone on the Hoyas either rushed at #5 (around 34 second mark) of China and knocked him off his feet or met an attacking #5 with an equal amount of force. Then he ran away quickly. Who was that? Around that time chairs started being thrown and in response another Hoya, at the left side of the screen, picked up a chair. He had been standing for a few moments as if he was unsure of what to do as a teammate was being pummeled but as soon as the chairs flew he too picked up a chair and meekly tossed it towards a couple of the opposing players. From the angle I can’t say for sure if the chair connected.

-Overall the Hoyas appeared to comport themselves well. A few of them stayed back and didn’t get mixed up too much with the fight and then a few more quickly backed off as well and dropped back to a safe/non-aggressive distance. The real heroes were the Hoya coaches who I felt quickly got into the middle of things even faster than what had been reported. It was clear they were trying to stop any fighting by THEIR players as well as protect them too. III handled himself as well as possible and he made a decisive decision that prevented the situation from possibly getting a lot worse.

So, yeah, what the Hoyas did wasn’t all that bad. Again I always took the position that the Hoyas were more victim than aggressor in this incident, but seeing the video I now know I still wasn’t giving them enough credit. If they threw punches that I did not catch that is unfortunate and the event will cause folks who still have issues with Georgetown (or folks who tend to think negatively of black athletes) to characterize the Georgetown team as being full of thugs. But for the most part the Hoyas handled themselves about as well as you could hope in a situation like that. I was too critical.

[williambraskyiii]

Aug 18, 2011 17:58:18 GMT -5 PushyGuyFanClub said:

Of course they were embarrassed. This was the Army team. They are an extension of the government. It is embarrassing when they don't win the domestic league, let alone get blown off the court by a US team (and there was probably racial tension as well knowing what I know about Chinese working-class attitudes). You can be sure they wanted to keep the score close so that the box score looked ok in the newspapers the next day -- and I'm sure their coach was managing for that outcome and informed the refs to think that way as well. Heck, the police wouldn't even intervene (they are lower rank than PLA).

Of course, the more you try to control outcomes, the more likely something is to get out of control -- which is something China's government needs to realize more broadly.

But now all of the domestic China media accounts have been taken down, which leads me to believe the Chinese government is extremely embarrassed. It's a fascinating little story though and embodies what is wrong with China's government (again, this team is an extension of them): They want respectable outcomes without necessarily getting them the hard way.

Interesting take -- thanks.

[Nevada Hoya]

After looking at the videos and reading comments, I am sorry to say that ping pong diplomacy is officially closed.

That being said, I hope something can be done to normalize our (US and GU) relationship with the Chinese, because that seems to be a priority.

[SirSaxa]

Aug 18, 2011 18:01:43 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Just checked out the video. My late observations:

-Not that I needed the video to confirm this, but I didn’t see Jason do anything to deserve an entire bench coming after him. He may have tried to shove an arm away, he may have thrown a low punch. In any case it does not seem as if he connected. At the very least he didn’t appear to do any damage. I could understand though if the Dragons’ player he got into it with objected but I don’t see any justification for the Chinese team running onto the floor to take their pound of flesh. My only explanation is the team was chomping at the bit and looking for any excuse to go all soccer-hooligan on the Hoyas.

-The video doesn’t have the best resolution. When the Hoyas rush to the middle of the court it is too blurry for me to get a true picture but I don’t see any punches thrown by any Hoya at that point (fists raised but not exactly fists thrown). If that’s the case then the Hoyas did exactly what I was asking for; put up a wall around their teammate without trying to escalate the situation. It also goes against Gene Wang’s level-headed writeup that punches were thrown by both sides. Of course he was there live and got a better picture of what went down (certainly didn’t have to rely on grainy video); maybe the Hoyas did throw some counters. And there were some still photos which also seemed to indicate the Hoyas got in their own blows. That was what I was disappointed with the most. But I have to say from the vid I don’t see anything at that moment that Gtown did wrong.

-The most problematic footage involving the Hoyas, IMO, occurred once the fracas rolled out towards the end of the court. Someone on the Hoyas either rushed at #5 (around 34 second mark) of China and knocked him off his feet or met an attacking #5 with an equal amount of force. Then he ran away quickly. Who was that? Around that time chairs started being thrown and in response another Hoya, at the left side of the screen, picked up a chair. He had been standing for a few moments as if he was unsure of what to do as a teammate was being pummeled but as soon as the chairs flew he too picked up a chair and meekly tossed it towards a couple of the opposing players. From the angle I can’t say for sure if the chair connected.

-Overall the Hoyas appeared to comport themselves well. A few of them stayed back and didn’t get mixed up too much with the fight and then a few more quickly backed off as well and dropped back to a safe/non-aggressive distance. The real heroes were the Hoya coaches who I felt quickly got into the middle of things even faster than what had been reported. It was clear they were trying to stop any fighting by THEIR players as well as protect them too. III handled himself as well as possible and he made a decisive decision that prevented the situation from possibly getting a lot worse.

So, yeah, what the Hoyas did wasn’t all that bad. Again I always took the position that the Hoyas were more victim than aggressor in this incident, but seeing the video I now know I still wasn’t giving them enough credit. If they threw punches that I did not catch that is unfortunate and the event will cause folks who still have issues with Georgetown (or folks who tend to think negatively of black athletes) to characterize the Georgetown team as being full of thugs. But for the most part the Hoyas handled themselves about as well as you could hope in a situation like that. I was too critical.

As many a coach has said, "I'll have to wait till I see the videotape"!

Anyway, good post MCI! Well done.

[professorhoya]

Aug 18, 2011 18:01:43 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Just checked out the video. My late observations:

-Not that I needed the video to confirm this, but I didn’t see Jason do anything to deserve an entire bench coming after him. He may have tried to shove an arm away, he may have thrown a low punch. In any case it does not seem as if he connected. At the very least he didn’t appear to do any damage. I could understand though if the Dragons’ player he got into it with objected but I don’t see any justification for the Chinese team running onto the floor to take their pound of flesh. My only explanation is the team was chomping at the bit and looking for any excuse to go all soccer-hooligan on the Hoyas.

I dunno if you saw this angle but it definitely does look like Clark threw a punch. Whether it connects or not, or is a punch or a shove, or is justified or not, or does damage or not is irrelevant there's a swing at the Chinese player and that would be considered a punch and an automatic ejection. (between 7 to the 9 second mark on the video)

Now the reaction of the Chinese team is old school Detroit Bad Boys, Rick Mahorn, Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, "give me eyeball" aggression. Which is why you have the rule of bench players not leaving the bench during the fight in the NBA.


www.wjla.com/articles/2011/08/georgetown-basketball-brawl-video-hoyas-involved-in-melee-in-china-65333.html

[blueandgray]

Aug 18, 2011 18:01:43 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Just checked out the video. My late observations:

-Not that I needed the video to confirm this, but I didn’t see Jason do anything to deserve an entire bench coming after him. He may have tried to shove an arm away, he may have thrown a low punch. In any case it does not seem as if he connected. At the very least he didn’t appear to do any damage. I could understand though if the Dragons’ player he got into it with objected but I don’t see any justification for the Chinese team running onto the floor to take their pound of flesh. My only explanation is the team was chomping at the bit and looking for any excuse to go all soccer-hooligan on the Hoyas.

-The video doesn’t have the best resolution. When the Hoyas rush to the middle of the court it is too blurry for me to get a true picture but I don’t see any punches thrown by any Hoya at that point (fists raised but not exactly fists thrown). If that’s the case then the Hoyas did exactly what I was asking for; put up a wall around their teammate without trying to escalate the situation. It also goes against Gene Wang’s level-headed writeup that punches were thrown by both sides. Of course he was there live and got a better picture of what went down (certainly didn’t have to rely on grainy video); maybe the Hoyas did throw some counters. And there were some still photos which also seemed to indicate the Hoyas got in their own blows. That was what I was disappointed with the most. But I have to say from the vid I don’t see anything at that moment that Gtown did wrong.

-The most problematic footage involving the Hoyas, IMO, occurred once the fracas rolled out towards the end of the court. Someone on the Hoyas either rushed at #5 (around 34 second mark) of China and knocked him off his feet or met an attacking #5 with an equal amount of force. Then he ran away quickly. Who was that? Around that time chairs started being thrown and in response another Hoya, at the left side of the screen, picked up a chair. He had been standing for a few moments as if he was unsure of what to do as a teammate was being pummeled but as soon as the chairs flew he too picked up a chair and meekly tossed it towards a couple of the opposing players. From the angle I can’t say for sure if the chair connected.

-Overall the Hoyas appeared to comport themselves well. A few of them stayed back and didn’t get mixed up too much with the fight and then a few more quickly backed off as well and dropped back to a safe/non-aggressive distance. The real heroes were the Hoya coaches who I felt quickly got into the middle of things even faster than what had been reported. It was clear they were trying to stop any fighting by THEIR players as well as protect them too. III handled himself as well as possible and he made a decisive decision that prevented the situation from possibly getting a lot worse.

So, yeah, what the Hoyas did wasn’t all that bad. Again I always took the position that the Hoyas were more victim than aggressor in this incident, but seeing the video I now know I still wasn’t giving them enough credit. If they threw punches that I did not catch that is unfortunate and the event will cause folks who still have issues with Georgetown (or folks who tend to think negatively of black athletes) to characterize the Georgetown team as being full of thugs. But for the most part the Hoyas handled themselves about as well as you could hope in a situation like that. I was too critical.

That was Clark who forcefully threw #5 back. #5 then picked up a chair and was about to use it when someone on the chinese coaching staff intervened.

Outside of Clark reacting to the last hard foul of the game....I see nothing wrong in the way the Hoyas handled themselves. In this sort of brawl, all you can hope to do is help the players that are being mauled get out of harms way...and head into the locker room as quickly as possible. That was accomplished within a minute....i'd say the Hoyas managed their emotions as best they could.

[BubbleVisionBiff]

Aug 18, 2011 16:36:30 GMT -5 chep3 said:

Aug 18, 2011 15:27:02 GMT -5 Cambridge said:

There have been several nominations in this thread alone.

Apologies if this has been said before (I haven't been able to.read the entire thread) but how about "it takes a nation of billions to hold us back?"

h/t to HoyaTejano:

CROUCHING JASON

III

HIDDEN THUNDERSNOW

[crashdavis]

Not to get too off topic, but any info on how the team actually played?

[MCIGuy]

Aug 18, 2011 18:50:18 GMT -5 crashdavis said:

Not to get too off topic, but any info on how the team actually played?

Yes, thank you. Seems like a week has gone by since I asked that myself.