Conference tournament season is upon us, and with the elevated stakes of playing for your ticket to the Big Dance comes raised tensions on the court.
In the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament, we saw that lead to a brawl between Florida and Kentucky, sparked by an incident between Florida’s Tatyana Wyche and Kentucky’s Ajae Petty. After a Kentucky bucket, Petty caught the ball coming through the hoop and stuck it in Wyche’s face as she turned to run back up the floor, which unsurprisingly did not sit well with Wyche. The Florida big then turned and launched the ball at Petty’s head, missing as Petty seemed to not even realize she was almost the recipient of a basketball to her dome as she jogged back on defense.
Wyche was not satisfied with that effort, so she chased Petty down the court to try and fight her, leading to the benches clearing as players and coaches tried to settle everything down.
Eight players were ejected in the SEC women's tournament after a scuffle broke out during the Kentucky-Florida game.
The game was delayed over 20 minutes. pic.twitter.com/iXUgUzltgj
— ESPN (@espn) March 1, 2023
This would’ve been even wilder, one would think, if Wyche had connected on her throw at Petty’s head, so it’s probably for the best that she missed because that thing was moving with some heat. Instead, it turned into the usual basketball kerfuffle with players pulling each other apart and pointing and yelling. Ultimately, the game was stopped for a considerable amount of time to go over the replays and figure out who left what bench areas and instigated things, with eight players getting tossed — including Wyche and Petty — for their involvement in the fracas.
