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Illinois-Iowa horn issue, explained: Why Elite 8 game was delayed due to buzzer malfunction originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
There can be all sorts of delays in college basketball.
The shot clock may not reset, or players may slip on a sweaty floor, requiring the surface to be wiped down for safety.
The Elite Eight matchup between Illinois and Iowa presented one of the weirdest delays in recent memory. There is a horn used to signal the end of the shot clock, and a similar horn is used to signal when a team has substitutions.
It sounded with 7:21 left in the first half and didn’t stop. Normally, it lasts about a second, but this time it blared for nearly 10 minutes of real time as officials scrambled to get it shut off.
Here is more on the bizarre horn issue in the Illinois-Iowa game.
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What was the Illinois-Iowa horn issue?
There was an 11-minute delay in the Illinois-Iowa Elite Eight game. There is an automatic horn that goes off when the shot clock goes off and a similar horn is used to signal when a substitution is made.
With 7:43 left in the first half, the horn sounded and refused to stop. No matter what the operators tried to do, the horn continued to sound. It lasted for 11 real-time minutes, and the officials even unplugged the horn to try to speed up its stoppage.
Eventually, the horn stopped. They brought in a new horn that needed to be operated manually. The chaos continued, though, as the solution, for whatever reason, meant that the jumbrotron had to be turned off. This mainly impacted fans in attendance, but the game on the broadcast did become darker. The game used a handheld air horn as a method for signaling substitutions.
MORE: Live updates for the Elite Eight matchup between Illinois and Iowa
How long did the horn go off?
According to the game broadcast, the horn blew for about 11 minutes straight. It blew so long that they rolled out basketballs on racks to the court so that the players could try to stay warm.
MORE: The Sporting News ranked the top 140 sports moments of all-time
Why were the officials unable to turn the horn off?
There hasn't been a specific reason given as to why the horn wouldn't shut off. It was likely just a malfunction, and we have seen it before. There was a horn-related delay from February's NBA matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons. In almost the same result, the jumbotron didn't work after, and they had to revert to using a manual air horn.
How long was Illinois-Iowa delayed?
The buzzer sounded for 11 minutes, but the game was delayed even more. After the situation was remedied, the players proceeded to get in a quick warm-up with cross-court jogs and get some shots up. All in all, the game was delayed between 15 and 20 minutes.
MORE: Full stats from Illinois-Iowa Elite Eight matchup
Handheld airhorn
With the horn issues being too much to overcome, the quickest solution was for someone at the scorer's table to manually operate an air horn. It didn't pack quite the same punch as the horn that broke.
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