A brawl broke out between players and coaches on both the North Dakota State and Oral Roberts men's basketball teams after a Summit League matchup on Thursday after Oral Roberts' head coach apparently took exception to the final seconds of the game. The game ended in a 77-59 blowout win for North Dakota State, with Maleeck Harden-Hayes stealing the ball in the final seconds and dunking it home after the buzzer.
In the handshake line after the game, Oral Roberts head coach Paul Mills began yelling at North Dakota State players, leading to tensions between the two teams escalating resulting in a pushing and shoving match.
While things did not go further than that, Oral Roberts' Elijah Lufile did have to be restrained from going after North Dakota State players on multiple occasions.
A last-second dunk resulted in words being exchanged & a scuffle between @ORUMBB & NDSU during the postgame handshake.
— Cayden McFarland (@caydenmc) February 18, 2022
Paul Mills exchanged words with NDSU coaches and players.
Elijah Lufile was involved in the scuffle and had to be restrained from re-entering the fray. pic.twitter.com/Q5ZcHFD32D
Both Mills as well as North Dakota State head coach Paul Richman apologized for the incident after the fact.
"ORU nor NDSU want to be represented in a negative light. Dave Richman & I have spoken & I have the utmost respect for the Bison program," read a statement by Mills. "Congratulations to the Bison on a dominant performance."
""You see the emotions of the game. You saw two teams playing until the end and some things spilled over," Richman said in a report by InForum. "That's not anything that I want this program to be a part of. There are situations that are going to be learning experiences for myself and our group as we move forward.
"Anything from our end, I will apologize to Oral Roberts and coach Mills. But I also asked our guys to play until the end and we played to the end tonight."
North Dakota State's dominance of Oral Roberts was a strong statement in conference play, as the Bison were able to hold Oral Roberts to a season-low in points. However, both teams are currently trailing South Dakota State in the Summit League standings.
