Sports

Costly Uniform Violation Comes Back To Bite Bethune-Cookman After Auburn Forces Overtime To Thwart Upset

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Auburn vs Bethune-Cookman college basketball game

John Reed-Imagn Images


There were a handful of unexpected upsets when the college basketball season officially kicked off on Monday. Bethune-Cookman was almost able to join the list of teams that stunned their opponents by giving Auburn a run for their money, and a uniform issue that led to a technical foul ended up having major implications in a game the Tigers won in overtime.

20 of the men’s basketball teams that ended up in the Top 25 heading into the 2025-26 season took to the court for the first time on Monday night. The meeting between #3 Florida and #13 Arkansas was the only one that featured two squads with a number next to their name, and the vast majority of the rest of the schools eased into the new year against a cupcake opponent that wasn’t poised to give them any serious trouble on paper.

That includes #20 Auburn, which kicked off the Steven Pearl Era against a Bethune-Cookman team that headed into the contest listed as a 24.5-point underdog. However, the Wildcats firmly covered the spread in a game that headed to overtime before the Tigers secured the 95-90 win to stave off the upset.

Auburn benefited from a technical foul that Bethune-Cookman was hit with in the first half over a largely inexcusable oversight, and it was hard to ignore the implications based on how things ended up playing out.

Bethune-Cookman came up short against Auburn after being hit with a technical foul because a player was wearing the wrong number

The rosters sheets that college basketball teams submit before every game tend to be a mere formality, but the rulebook states officials must be provided with the “names and uniform numbers of team members who may participate, and those of the five starting players” no later than 10 minutes prior to the opening tip.

Handing in a sheet that lists an incorrect jersey number is a violation that merits a technical foul, and on Monday, Auburn was awarded a single free throw midway through the first half after the refs realized there was a discrepancy between the digit on a Bethune-Cookman player’s jersey and the one on the official roster (the box score does not note which player was guilty).

Keyshawn Hall was tapped to step up to the charity stripe to sink the shot that decreased Auburn’s deficit to a single point in what became a 16-15 game.

That ended up having some major implications when you consider Bethman-Cookman theoretically would have had the chance to sink a walk-off free throw after it was awarded the three that ultimately sent the game to overtime when Arterio Morris was fouled while attempting a buzzer beater.

Ouch.