Plymouth Raiders qualified for the BBL Trophy semi-finals following an 87-83 victory over the Guildford Heat.
Unfortunately, the game was overshadowed by an incident involving Guildford’s Martelle McLemore and Plymouth Raiders mascot, Foxy.
Unfortunately footage of the incident is unavailable but a neutral source informed TalkBasket that in the latter stages of the fourth quarter, McLemore fouled Plymouth’s Anthony Rowe; Foxy went onto the court to go next to the Guildford Heat guard.
McLemore then turned to Foxy and gave him a little nudge to which Foxy dramatically fell down, once McLemore turned back to the game, Foxy pulled the player’s shorts down.
Guildford Heat coach Creon Raftopoulos was understandably upset about the incident
“It is simply wrong for a mascot to come onto the court and interfere with play, you simply can not do that,” Raftopoulos stressed.
“When I spoke to the referees during a timeout that I used up just to calm my players down, I spoke to the referee and he simply said that it wasn’t their responsibility.
Continuing on, Creon said: “It put a damper on what was a good game, but out of all the things I’ve seen, that is one of the most unprofessional incidents that I can think of.”
Guildford Heat forward Tayo Ogedengbe let his feelings known about the incident on his Twitter feed: “Only in the bbl can a mascot pull down a visiting players shorts in the middle of the game, and the refs do nothing???? ACB, Pro A/B NEVER!”
Ogedengbe also Tweeted: “Never seen anything like it in my life BBL step your game up for the sake of British basketball, please I beg u, as a English player”
Guildford Heat have now been eliminated from the BBL Trophy, losing all three of their Group games, they play Worcester Wolves at home on Wednesday in a dead rubber contest.
