Providence's Duncan Powell Suspended After CBB Fight on Video in St. John's Game Led to 6 Ejections

Duncan Powell, the Providence basketball player whose hard foul led to a fight and six ejections in Saturday's matchup against St. John's, has been suspended.

The Big East announced Sunday that Powell will serve a two-game suspension in addition to the automatic one-game suspension mandated by NCAA rules.

Powell apologized for his actions in a social media post Monday:

Powell committed a hard foul on St. John's Bryce Hopkins, sparking a massive brawl between the two squads that included a handful of punches thrown. Powell and Jaylin Sellers were ejected for Providence and St. John's Kelvin Odih, Ruben Prey, Lefteris Liotopoulos and Dillon Mitchell were removed from the game. A fan was also ejected from the arena after partaking in the fight.

"You're not supposed to come off the bench, but you can't let your players get beat up," St. John's head coach Rick Pitino told reporters after the game. "You can't fight. Back when I was the Kentucky coach we fought almost every SEC game, and it was not a big deal. But you can't fight anymore, so toughness has to come between the lines."

Hopkins, a senior, spent three seasons at Providence before transferring to St. John's ahead of the 2025-26 campaign. Saturday's game was his first time back at Providence since leaving the Friars. Powell transferred to Providence from Georgia Tech this year, so he was never on the same roster as Hopkins.

"I feel like we responded in the best way possible," St. John's forward Zuby Ejiofor said. "Coming into this game we knew exactly how rowdy this environment was going to be — not only for him, but for all of us. We knew it was going be tough. You have to have a great mindset to come in here and win, and I think that's what we did."

St. John's and Providence will not meet again during the regular season. The Friars will be without Powell for games against DePaul, Xavier and Creighton.