The UCSB men’s basketball team defeated Hawaii 86-77 Thursday night at the Thunderdome in an ESPNU televised game. Instead of the Gauchos’ victory garnering attention, UCSB is receiving national coverage for an incident of a UCSB student running onto the court and confronting Hawaii head coach Gib Arnold.
With UCSB leading 30-16 with 6:02 remaining in the first half, Hawaii senior guard Brandon Spearman was assessed a technical foul for complaining to officials. Arnold then rushed to half-court to argue with referees before being restrained by a Hawaii player, receiving a technical foul in the process.
That is when the student rushed onto the court, angrily confronting Arnold and yelling in the coach’s face. Hawaii players Christian Standhardinger and Garrett Nevels quickly pushed the fan away before anything else happened. The fan backpedaled to his seat, gesturing for Hawaii players to come after him.
“I apologized to Hawaii during the game, I apologized to Gib at halftime. He came over to me and we chatted,” UCSB head coach Bob Williams said. “I apologized to the officials, they should never have to deal with anything like that.”
The student returned to his midcourt seat in student section, high-fiving friends in the vicinity. Bob Brontsema, Assistant Athletics Director of Events, Facilities and Operations immediately followed the student into the stands, calmly escorting the student out of the Thunderdome without using force. The student complied, grabbing his jacket before receiving a few high-fives as he walked out of the arena.
Following his ejection, the student was arrested by campus police and spent the night in a local police holding cell before friends picked him up Friday morning. The student was wearing a navy UCSB Class of 2014 shirt, and was yelling and jumping up and down throughout the duration of the first half, obviously excited about the game.
“It’s embarrassing. That’s a bad foot to be putting forward that represents all of UCSB,” Williams said. “That’s just wrong. Flat out wrong and it should never happen.”
According to Bill Mahoney, Assistant Athletics Director of Communications, the student will face disciplinary action from the university following a hearing from Judicial Affairs, one of the possible actions being expulsion.
Many members of the UCSB Athletics Department expressed regret at the conclusion of the game regarding the embarrassment UCSB would receive from the actions of this one student.
This incident certainly placed a negative light on UCSB, with the story receiving national attention, including a headline on the front page of ESPN.
This article is an online exclusive and did not appear in the print edition of The Daily Nexus.
Photo by Peter Vandenbelt of The Daily Nexus.
If this moron has the right to embarrass our university on national TV, the Nexus owes it to us to publish his name so that we can all embarrass him in other ways…
We aren’t allowed to just yet… but I know how you feel.
Looks like you got your chance to embarrass him in other ways, he published his own name…
Too bad the loser deleted his Facebook. I think his twitter is still up though:
@ZacWendroff
Let’s get this guy, makes us look like drunken idiots.
Jack . . . clean your own house!
This is bully talk. I think bullies than worms.
Yo fuck that Zac Wendroff kid!!! I had class with him last year and he’s a fucking douche. Go eat a bag of dicks Zac
I hope this is really you, POS. If this is verified, a comment like this will get you EXPELLED!
Then, back on mommy’s tit. Man, I was really hoping one of the Hawaii players would’ve punched the stupid right out of you and that’s a shitload of stupid, pigfuck.
That is NOT Zac who wrote that
OK, Mom. Didn’t think so.
Yeah he “was yelling and jumping up and down throughout the duration of the first half,” but not like someone who’s “obviously excited about the game.” Nope, just like storming the court, it was the kind of stuff people to that really really need attention. He got it now.
Also, will you just stop calling him a “fan” already? I haven’t seen this punk at any games before (and I sure as hell won’t even again :-D ), I doubt he could name our starting 5. He’s not a fan.
Zac really needs to be expelled so the next pussy like him will think twice about trying to get “attention”.
Zac is a good guy….he was drinking and got carried away….All you angels in this school stand up.
was it an exciting game?
I hope everyone knows this wasn’t Zac who posted this and whoever did is a worse person then Zac is being made out to be. None of you know what you’re talking about and wouldn’t even know about it if it weren’t for the ESPN coverage. If you want to ostracize someone on campus maybe the frat boys who broke a girls face on saturday, and it’s funny how the gang rapes haven’t been talked about in about a week and for some reason this sports event still is. This is a kids education and worse things happen in Isla… Read more »
It’s unfortunate. The kid apparently has problems. I don’t think its wise to remove him from the school. He has one more year left; he has parents who spent a great deal of money to put him there, and most of all he has a future.
Perhaps, this will be an awaking.