Indiana-Wisconsin game at Assembly Hall is halted due to a fire alert.

 

Tuesday night at Assembly Hall, Indiana men’s basketball defeated Wisconsin 74-70, but the game was momentarily cut short when smoke alarms went off during the second half.

The fans filed outside when an alarm went off and lights started flashing in different parts of the arena, but play on the court went on until there were less than ten minutes remaining in the half and the score was knotted at 54. Wisconsin had tied the score at that point with four straight points when play was stopped.

When an automatic voice told spectators to leave the arena, both teams went back to their locker rooms.

Various tales started to circulate in the arena and online. While some said that the area was experiencing terrible weather, others mentioned a possible fire. The official statement disclosed the ultimate cause:

Yet, spectators had started to leave the arena. A security guard stopped at least one unfortunate person who had purchased a beer and instructed them to finish it before exiting the establishment.

Play ultimately resumed with some fans returning to their seats. Each head coach had something to say about the pause in postgame press conferences.

Here’s what Mike Woodson had to say:

“First of all, I want to thank our fan base, the crowd for going through what we all went through and still came back into the game and gave us the support we needed to get over the hump and win the game. I truly thank the fans. It’s the first time I’ve ever been a part of something like that as a player and coach. When you go in the locker room, you’re trying to clean up things going on during the course the game, especially the second half when we got going, and then try to get offensive plays in quickly so they know what we’re doing when we come out to start play again. It’s a tie game. I thought we played well early. Wisconsin, they’re well-coached. They’re not going to ever quit. They pushed us to the end. I just thought we held in there after even going down. I think we went down three and Mack hit a big three to tie it. From that point on we never looked back.”