One Year Later, Ameer Ali Still Paying for Body Slamming Blake Griffin

An incident from last year's NCAA tournament, long-forgotten by all but its most diehard observers, will cost Morgan State one of its starting forwards in the 15th-seeded Bears' first-round game against West Virginia Friday.

Ameer Ali was ejected from Morgan State's first-round game against Oklahoma in 2009, for flipping Sooners star Blake Griffin over his back in the second half of Oklahoma's 82-54 rout. However, Ali was also suspended by the NCAA for his next tournament game, which turned out to be against the Mountaineers, the No. 2 seed in the East regional.

In an interview with Baltimore's WVIE-AM radio Monday, Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman said that the school had been told of the punishment soon after the 2009 tournament had ended; Morgan State appealed and was denied. So Ali, now a sophomore who started 21 games and led Morgan State with 14 points and eight rebounds in a MEAC tournament semifinal win over Hampton last week, will sit out his second, and his school's second, Division I tournament game.

"The whole idea of the appeal was that the kid suffered a lot from it,'' Bozeman said. "He apologized for it, he obviously was ejected from the game, he received a lot of hate mail and some death threats, and he's gone through an awful lot for it.''

The NCAA turned down Morgan State's offer to discipline Ali for one or two regular-season games, Bozeman said.

"Their rationale was, they don't have any jurisdiction over the regular season ... [They] only have jurisdiction over the NCAA tournament. So I said, 'Suppose we don't go to the tournament again until his senior year -- you're telling me that three years later, he has to relive this whole thing and explain why he can't participate in a first-round game?' And their answer was, 'Yes.' "

A spokesperson for the NCAA referred questions about the decision to Morgan State officials, citing privacy issues.

With 7:41 left in the game last year in Kansas City, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Ali got his arms locked with those of the 6-10 Griffin while battling in the lane, and ended up rolling Griffin over his head and back and onto the court. Ali was ejected immediately. Griffin was unhurt, returned to the game and later downplayed it, saying, "I got tangled up. It turned out bad."

After that game, Bozeman told reporters, "We haven't had an incident like that all year. That's not our style." Nevertheless, the team and program were widely criticized around the country and treated harshly locally by onlookers who thought the play and player reflected negatively on the school, Baltimore and historically-black colleges overall.

The topic ran its course quickly, however, and this season Ali averaged 4.4 points and 4.0 rebounds in 13 minutes per game.

"It is what it is,'' Bozeman told the station, "and that's just some motivation for the guys, because if you advance and you can play again, he can then play again. He just has to sit out one game. So the end result is that if we're fortunate enough and we can go to the tournament again in future years, he won't have to deal with it again."