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Chad Baker-Mazara doubles down on role in Alabama fan altercation

by:Alex Byington•02/16/25•

_AlexByington

CBM

Auburn guard Chad Baker-Mazara made it clear he’s not at fault for the heated in-game confrontation with multiple Alabama fan during Saturday’s 94-85 road win over the No. 2 Crimson Tide.

Early in the second half of Saturday’s historic 1 vs. 2 matchup, Baker-Mazara attempted to dive for a loose ball along the Alabama baseline and crashed into several Crimson Tide fans seated underneath the basket. At which point, multiple Alabama fans make contact and appear to push Baker-Mazara away, to which the Auburn guard to took offense and exchanged words with the two closest fans to him.

ESPN cameras caught the interaction, and fans from both sides of the Iron Bowl rivalry have debated who was ultimately at fault in the 24 hours since.

After a digitally slowed-down video of the incident revealed a college-aged Alabama fan came out of his seat directly behind the backboard to seemingly push Baker-Mazara from behind, the Tigers standout took to social media to reaffirm his innocence in the entire situation.

“But some how I am wrong for this,” Baker-Mazara wrote in a quote-tweet of the new video.

Coming into Saturday, Baker-Mazara’s status was in question. A nagging injury had bothering him for several games, and limited him to zero points Tuesday against Vanderbilt. Whatever was ailing him, it didn’t impact him against No. 2 Alabama, as Baker-Mazara finished with 15 points in 24 minutes of action off the bench.

Bruce Pearl proud of how Auburn responded to momentum shifts vs. Alabama

It was always going to be an emotionally charged game when the Auburn Tigers took on the Alabama Crimson Tide as two of the top teams in the country. With that came runs of momentum, which Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl feels his team handled incredibly well.

After the game, Pearl shared just how proud he was of the Tigers and how they handled those momentum shifts. In particular, he called out how well his team shot late in the game, getting contributions from multiple players.

“We made eight of our last 10 field goals,” Bruce Pearl said. “Alright, that’s how you close out a game. I thought that Tahaad [Pettiford] hit a big one in transition, wasn’t afraid to take that shot, kind of blew the lead up a little bit. Chad Baker-Mazara, we didn’t have much offense running, we were trying to get the ball inside, and I don’t know if the score was tied, it was pretty close. Bang, he hits a three-ball just with some experience.”

Auburn finished the game shooting 46.2 percent from the field and 40 percent from three-point range. On top of that, six different players managed to score in double digits. That helped to overcome the rebounding deficit the Tigers faced as well as some pretty big foul trouble that Auburn ran into as a team.

“What our locker room feels good about right now is so many guys contributed. Chris Moore played seven minutes, was plus-17 starting for a banged-up Chad Baker-Mazara. So, when we talk about that lineup, and guys were all over Chris Moore. Everybody contributed. Dylan Cardwell fouls out and we lost one of our best defenders. We just didn’t panic,” Pearl said. “Late in the game, I am kind of looking down and to say we got a couple guys fouled out. We managed.”

On3’s Griffin McVeigh and Dan Morrison contributed to this report.