One of the appeals of basketball is the potential interactivity between the players and the fans. Anybody who went to a high school worth a damn remembers how fun the varsity basketball games were. There’s truly nothing more fulfilling than when a stadium full of people all gang up on one of the team’s opposing players.
That said, as fans you have to know where the line is and make sure not to cross it. Harmless fun can turn into hateful spite with just one overly aggressive fan. Apparently, Washington’s Malik Dime thought that line had been crossed.
Dime, a 6’9″, 220-pound senior, had enough, so we went to confront the rowdy Colorado Students.
Via BSN Denver:
“We were talking the usual game talk with the players like we usually do,” Dylan, a CU student said. “Malik looked over at us at one point and said ‘I’m gonna come over there and slap the s*** out of you.’ We didn’t think that was real so we just laughed and then at the end of the half he came over to us and pretended like he was giving me a handshake and I reached out and he pulled back and slapped me in the face and the follow through hit the person sitting right next to me, which was Brian.”
“I wasn’t shocked because he said, ‘I’m gonna slap the s*** out of you,’” Brian, a C-Unit member added. “Jeremiah Paige and Larry Eustachy have said worse, we have a long tradition of getting under people’s skin but nobody has ever taken physical action, and I’m surprised.”
Dime took the rare step, or hand in this instance over the line and hit a Colorado student.
Thankfully, the slap victims reacted exactly how you would expect a couple of drunk Boulder students to react: kind of impressed.
“I thought it was a real handshake,” Brian told. “He came over with a windup, it was a hard hit. It’s a double face, there’s no way around that.”
“One slap, two faces, I was impressed, he’s got a big wingspan,” Dylan remarked.
After the game, which the Huskies lost 81-66, Dime apologized and shook hands with the students.
