We can bellow with great moral indignity about the vicious foul Duncan Powell committed on Bryce Hopkins on Saturday afternoon at Providence’s Amica Mutual Pavilion. And make no mistake: “vicious” is the softest of all the available adjectives. It was a grotesque bit of on-court assault that should earn Powell a multiple-game suspension.
Remember Kevin McHale clotheslining Kurt Rambis in Game 4 of the 1984 NBA Finals, forever the gold standard for unapologetic cheap shots? You can tuck this one on the same shelf. Hopkins was ahead of the field speeding toward a breakaway, Powell caught up, and delivered a flying headlock. It was filthy.
But if you can take a step back — hard as it might have been in the 19-minute delay that followed, in which Powell was ejected for fighting and six players (including four Johnnies) joined him for various secondary offenses — it was more than just an old-fashioned basketball brouhaha. It was an inevitable product of where college basketball is right now.
Hopkins played his previous three years at Providence. When he was healthy, he was terrific, but a bad knee cost him most of the past two years. After last season he spent about 17 seconds in the portal before transferring to St. John’s. This was a percolating storyline for days in advance of this game, which the Johnnies ultimately won 79-69.