By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Perhaps some of the weirdest basketball minutes you’ve recently seen took place in a Maltese League match last week.
Depiro beat Hibernians 69 – 68 on the last day of the regular season in a game where no points were scored in the last 6:30 minutes. And that wasn’t because the two teams failed in their genuine efforts to make a basket but because, apparently, they tried really really hard to do the opposite.
Footage of the last six minutes shows players from both teams deliberately committing turnovers, including shot-clock violations, sending bad passes (visibly on purpose) and just waiting for the time to expire with a single goal: Do anything possible to avoid any change in the score.
When one of the younger players on the floor actually took a legit attempt to send the ball to the basket in the last seconds, one of his opponents rushed and blocked the shoot.
Serie A maltese di basket. 6 minuti alla fine di Depiro-Hibernians, ultima giornata di regular season. Il punteggio non cambia più, nessuna delle due vuole vincere per ottenere il piazzamento desiderato nella griglia playoff.
6 minuti di scempio sportivo. pic.twitter.com/vrI2OtsILk— La Giornata Tipo (@parallelecinico) March 27, 2022
The Malta Basketball Association declared the game null and void and expelled both teams from the league effective immediately for “failing to maintain the standard and integrity expected by the Association council” and “bringing the game and Maltese Basketball into serious disrepute.”
Furthermore, Depiro coach James Bamfield and Hibernians coach Mario Tabone were suspended until the end of the 2022-23 season for “failing to uphold the integrity of the sport.” The players from the two teams that were involved in suspicious actions during the last six minutes were handed a three-game ban. Three underage Depiro players had their own sanction suspended for the next three years.