College Basketball Game Halted After Metal Rod Falls From Scoreboard, Nearly Hits Player

Indiana University broke ground on Assembly Hall in 1967, and opened the 17,222-seat arena in 1971. It is not the oldest venue in college basketball by a large margin, but it is more than five decades old.

Any arena over 50 years old is going to show its age. That was the case on Saturday night and it got dangerous!

Indiana hosted Ohio State in Bloomington and took a 46-30 lead at halftime. As both teams emerged from the locker room, Buckeyes freshman Brice Sensabaugh was the last to join his team on the bench.

As he meandered across half court, a metal rod fell from the jumbotron and landed within a few feet of his feet. It missed, but it was awfully close to a dangerous scene.

As a result of the falling debris, the game was halted for approximately five minutes. Officials inspected the scoreboard and deemed that it was safe to continue the game.

While the jumbotron did not cause any further issues in the second half, Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann had his concerns about resuming the game. He said that he was told by officials that the metal rod weighed somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds.

Holtmann inquired whether his team had the autonomy to request further delay or postponement of the game, which officials did not rule out. However, they did assure the Buckeyes head coach that they did not believe there was any reason not to continue with the second half and that the board was safe.

Indiana disputed Holtmann's 10/15-pound claim on Sunday morning:


The piece that fell from the center hung scoreboard at SSAH on Saturday night was an unused unistrut bracket. It was 18 inches in length and just over 1 pound.
It is believed that the unused piece was left from the original installation of the Daktronics scoreboard, which occurred 7 years ago, and the vibration from the crowd and music caused the piece to come loose and fall at halftime of the game. The scoreboard was inspected by IU facility operations staff and no other unused or loose pieces were found.

Indiana's scoreboard was not deemed a safety issue. Holtman was clearly uncomfortable with the idea, but allowed play to continue.

Based on the size of the rod, it could have injured Sensabaugh.

It left a dent on the hardwood that was not insignificant.

Fortunately, nobody was injured. Indiana lowered the scoreboard after the game for further inspection.