The Monmouth University men's basketball team traveled to Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kan., to take on the No. 5-ranked Kansas Jayhawks Friday night. KU dominated, as expected, but one Monmouth player wasn't going to take the blowout loss quietly.
Junior guard George Papas, a Jersey City, N.J., native who played scholastically at Union Catholic, was on the floor in the closing seconds while Kansas dribbled out the clock, leading 110-55.
Papas, who was apparently unimpressed with the way the Jayhawks were nonchalantly trying to close out the game, stole the ball and unleashed a furious dunk to... cut the Jayhawks' lead to 53 points with 4.1 seconds remaining.
This is one way to end a blowout 😳
- SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 16, 2019
While trailing by 55 with 15 secs left, Monmouth's George Papas stole the ball as Kansas was dribbling out the clock, dunked it and got a tech. pic.twitter.com/o43LZsANbi
The ensuing trash talk from Papas led to a technical foul, and as you can hear the ESPN broadcast wasn't thrilled with Papas' actions at the end of the game, either.
Monmouth head coach King Rice didn't like what he saw from his player, either.
Monmouth coach King Rice addressed dunk incident with his team. "That is uncalled for. That is not what our program represents, and is not what our program stands for. You get beat by a better team, you shake their hand and you walk off to court and you take in the experience."
- Jesse Newell (@jessenewell) November 16, 2019
Is dunking and talking trash when your team is trailing by 50-plus points too much, or should you play to the final buzzer no matter what?