Every professional and collegiate basketball team has a dedicated group of equipment managers whose main job is to ensure, at minimum, everyone has the right uniforms and their shoes for the game.
Ideally they also have the proper warmup attire and other gear as well, but the jerseys and shoes are the only real necessities. On Wednesday night we learned what happened when that doesn’t happen when Texas A&M visited Florida and realized before tipoff they had left their game jerseys at the team hotel.
Texas A&M and Florida are in delay. Why you ask? That’s a very good question.
Hint: the game is starting now with a technical free throw. pic.twitter.com/WkMUe1IXBW
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 5, 2023
The result was one of the only true delay of game penalties in basketball history, as they quite literally could not start the game until they went and got the jerseys — although some threw out the idea of just playing shirts and skins like it was pickup ball. That meant Florida started the game with a 1-0 lead before the opening tip by hitting a technical free throw, which provided the odd visual of something other than a 0-0 score on the scorebox when they jumped it up at midcourt to finally start the game officially.
If the game ends up being decided by one, it could be the rare game lost by the equipment staff rather than the players.