Ensuing free throw gave Mississippi State a one-point win
This has been a nightmare season for the Georgia Bulldogs, with just one conference win in Tom Crean’s first year at the school. They found a creatively excruciating way to add to the misery on Wednesday, losing in the last second to Mississippi State in the most bizarre way possible.
Mississippi State beat Georgia thanks to a late-game technical assessed to UGA for a fan throwing a stuffed animal on the court pic.twitter.com/cmCnOaP9g1
— Highlights on Loop (@LoopedReplay) February 21, 2019
Georgia was already in dire straits, with a tied game and just 0.5 seconds left, and a fouled Quinndary Weatherspoon at the line for Mississippi State. After Weatherspoon missed the first free throw, what should have been a temporary reprieve for the Bulldogs became a nightmare, because a fan threw what appeared to be a stuffed animal onto the court, at Weatherspoon.
That prompted Crean to address the crowd over the PA system, telling Georgia fans, “Stay with us. Don’t throw anything on the court.”
Tom Crean with a more direct way to handle a fan situation at Georgia. Grabbing the PA mic after someone throws a stuffed animal on the floor during a crucial moment of the game.
— Dave Furst (@DaveFurst) February 21, 2019
"Stay with us. Don't throw anything on the court." pic.twitter.com/W7cEWL4kc3
The result of the act was a technical foul on Georgia, the home team. Weatherspoon already had one more free throw coming anyway, but the technical gave him another. He made the technical free throw before shooting, and missing his second free throw from the last-second foul.
So Georgia got the best they could have hoped for with two missed free throws that should have sent the game into overtime, but instead the technical free throw gave Mississippi State the win.
Life is rough at 1-12 in the SEC.