A wild brawl broke out during an AAU tournament semifinal game in Georgia on Sunday morning.
RAW Athletics, a program from Chicago, was taking on the Houston Raptors when, in the closing minutes of a win for the Raptors, the RAW players became embroiled in a massive brawl with the referees, complete with haymakers that were thrown by both sides:
Here is another clip I received! Unbelievable!!!! @aau_bingo pic.twitter.com/tNxcaBsYNE
— Doug Jones (@djones8301) July 8, 2018
In a since-deleted tweet on Sunday, RAW coach Howard Martin defended the actions of his players, saying that the officials were at fault for what happened.
“A ref actually walked up on one of our players and attacked him,” Martin wrote. “Everyone tried to break it all up, then the ref’s father (who was working a game on a different court) ran over to our court and rushed our guys..everyone in the gym, the other team and the directors saw everything.”
But according to every other eyewitness report, the fault lies with the players on RAW Athletics, who physically assaulted the official, causing him to end up on the ground on his back in the first video above.