SPOKANE, Wash. -- Auburn's Chad Baker-Mazara was ejected for a flagrant foul 2 less than four minutes into the fourth-seeded Tigers' upset loss to No. 13 seed Yale on Friday in the first round of the NCAA men's tournament.
After a lengthy review, officials announced the foul against Baker-Mazara and sent him to the locker room. A few minutes later, Baker-Mazara posted on social media, "I believe in my boys they got em!!"
Replays showed that Baker-Mazara appeared to throw an elbow toward Yale's August Mahoney as the pair ran downcourt. Mahoney immediately tried to get the attention of officials, and once play stopped with 16:59 left in the first half, officials went to the replay monitor.
"Obviously, the decision to flagrant 2 Chad Baker, that's a pretty tough call," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. "He had gotten hit about five seconds earlier, got tangled up, got a little bit of an elbow. They let it go -- maybe nobody saw it -- and about five seconds later, Chad hit him. It was inappropriate, clearly a flagrant 1. The fact that it was elevated to a flagrant 2 was a decision that the official had to make, but it's obviously a tremendous impact on the outcome.
"Chad is one of our best players. He's one of our very best playmakers and was a huge part of our game plan and so to lose him and that situation was really, really disruptive to our team on both ends of the floor."
Baker-Mazara averages 10.3 points.
Pearl said he received a brief explanation from an official after the call was made.
"The fact that it was serious maybe or intentional. Chad lined him up and retaliated, so by the book -- or if that's the wording they'll use as a flagrant 2, but it's had a huge impact on the game," Pearl said. "I think it was flagrant 1. It was intentional, it was excessive -- how many flagrant 2s are there in games versus flagrant 1s? That'd be a good discussion. Let's just say of all the flagrants, in my experience, 90% maybe 1s."
Yale, the Ivy League champion, trailed Auburn 41-34 at the half. The Bulldogs rallied in the second half to tie the game at 70-all with 2:38 remaining in regulation.
Trailing 72-70, Yale took the lead on a 3 by guard John Poulakidas, who scored a career-high 28 points in the win.
Auburn had several chances down the stretch to tie or even win the game, including a missed 3-pointer by K.D. Johnson at the buzzer.
Yale will face San Diego State in the second round Sunday.
Information from ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and The Associated Press was used in this report.