UPDATE: The University of Hawaii athletics director Ben Jay is suffering from internal bleeding and has been hospitalized due to injuries he sustained during Sunday night's fight.
Original Story:
A brawl following the University of Hawaii's loss against the West Virginia Mountaineers was so dramatic and chaotic, it left Ben Jay, UH's Athletic Director, injured and caused the wife of WVU coach Mike Carey to faint.
Apparently, as the awards for the Wahine Classic women’s tournament were being prepared after the game, a UH fan and a WVU assistant coach exchanged some words behind the WVU bench.
"He was heckling the whole game," Carey said of the fan. But the trouble escalated when "He came down from the stands trying to go after my assistant coach ... And then somebody grabbed him, stopped him and he kept trying to go, and people fell. That's when all the commotion started."
"People lost their minds," according to UH coach Laura Beeman, who observed the fight while keeping her team safe from the mayhem. "Talk about mob mentality."
Jay tried to break up the fighting, but emerged from the crowd minutes later holding his face and bent over. He remained hunched over at center court while people attended to him and eventually walked off the court with his own strength.
"He was either stomped, hit with a chair or punched," Beeman said of Jay.
Carey's wife fainted during the commotion, but is reportedly fine now.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, "no one was taken to a hospital. No arrests were immediately known. WVU officials told UH they would not press charges," and Carey and Jay left the court on cordial terms.
Questions regarding security in the arena, however, were immediately raised.
Watch the fight below and enjoy announcer Jim Leahey's observation that, "This is just stupid."
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