Georgia basketball is on the rise under Tom Crean, but there are still some kinks to iron out. The crowd at Stegeman Coliseum gave the Bulldogs another thing to worry about Wednesday night after Georgia lost to Mississippi State over a technical foul assessed to the home team. The reason? A stuffed animal was thrown onto the floor.
The tech was assessed with 0.5 seconds left in a 67-67 game. Mississippi State won the game 68-67 when Quinndary Weatherspoon hit his technical free throw, which was assessed after a Weatherspoon miss at the line.
With 0.5 seconds to play in a tie game, a fan tossed a stuffed animal onto the court in Georgia.
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 21, 2019
The Bulldogs were assessed a technical foul. Mississippi St made the FT, and won the game. Wow 🤭 pic.twitter.com/7PNheymQrp
Now, there is one glaring issue with this. While fans throwing things onto the floor shouldn't be tolerated by officials, what exactly is to prevent fans from going "undercover" as a home fan and getting a technical? Sports fans are wild, so it's far from outside of the realm of possibility. To another degree, fans undoubtedly want games to be decided by players, not by fans outside of crowd noise. All in all, this situation is not a great look, and it's a tough loss for Georgia.
With all of that being said, there's something hilarious about a teddy bear costing a team a game. While the merits of the tech itself can be debated, the comedy behind the fact that a stuffed animal determined the outcome of a college basketball game in February can not.
