Virginia vs Arkansas men’s basketball game was one for the birds – literally

The first full week of the 2026-27 men’s college basketball season was capped off by a highly anticipated matchup between No. 10 Virginia and No. 13 Arkansas in Washington, D.C on Sunday, Nov. 8.

It was the kind of game that everyone wanted to get in on the action for – and not just the nearly 11,000 fans who were inside Capital One Arena.

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With 2:09 remaining in the second half, and with the Cavaliers nursing a comfortable 83-68 lead, the game was stopped briefly due to a pair of pigeons that had made their way onto the court.

More: 3 takeaways from Arkansas basketball’s blowout loss to Virginia

Initial attempts to shoo the birds away were unsuccessful. Razorbacks junior guard Billy Richmond III, apparently upset that something on the court could fly higher than him and his 41-inch vertical leap, lowered his left hand to hover above the court and try to usher the pigeons away. But he only moved them to a different portion of the court, where they continued to loiter.

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Eventually, with the birds near the baseline, a group of three Arkansas players and a charging John Calipari were able to get them to fly off.

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See who dominates Nielsen’s list of top college basketball fan bases

The Kentucky Wildcats and Louisville Cardinals have one of the fiercest rivalries in college sports, and new data shows that the Battle of the Bluegrass also features the two most devoted college basketball fan bases. Lexington, Kentucky ranked as the No. 1 market in the country for men’s and women’s basketball programs, according to the “Nielsen Scarborough Fandom Index” released on Tuesday, Nov. 3 by media audience research firm Nielsen. The index was created by analyzing data across seven metrics: apparel purchases, event attendance, streaming, social media following, TV viewership, radio listening, and overall interest level. On Nielsen’s list of the top 20 college hoops markets in America, Lexington’s index score of 289 took the top spot, followed by Louisville’s score…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/virginia-vs-arkansas-mens-basketball-213221820.html

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Publish date : 2026-11-08 21:32:00

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