WATCH: Indiana-Wisconsin game abruptly stops leading to quick evacuation of fans from Bloomington Assembly Hall

A basketball game between the Indiana Hoosiers and the Wisconsin Badgers has abruptly ended recently, with fans being forcibly evacuated out of the Bloomington Assembly Hall. A video of the evacuation of the venue was posted on X, with it already earning almost 118k views at the time of this writing:

Fan reactions to the video on X assumed that the evacuation was either due to fire alarms going off or perhaps even a tornado warning. But multiple sources have now confirmed otherwise.

Either way, the game was indeed stopped with just under 12 minutes left in the game, but action resumed shortly afterwards (via Sports Illustrated).

Why was the Indiana-Wisconsin game stopped midway?

It has been confirmed that the game stoppage was indeed due to fire alarms going off via a separate Sports Illustrated report on the matter. Some people knew it wasn't a tornado alarm, including Zach Osterman of the Indianapolis Star, who eventually tweeted:

"The whole building's being evacuated. It's not a tornado."

Either way, fans were forced to wait outside the arena for updates. Here's a video of the people who were evacuated just waiting to get back into the Assembly Hall:

As one could see, there's not much commotion going on with the crowd, and everyone seemed to be calm and open-minded during the situation. After what could be assumed is several minutes, the fans were let back into the venue once the fire alarms were turned off.

A brief delay ensued once more, then the players were allowed to warm up and the game resumed.

Right as this article is getting published, the Indiana-Wisconsin basketball game is in its final seconds. In the end, the Hoosiers won by four, 74-70.

Absurd game delays in college basketball

The Indiana-Wisconsin basketball game stoppage is just one of a handful of weird game delays that the NCAA has seen throughout its history. However, the reason for this one is far, far, far more normal-sounding compared to a couple of instances in the past.

Two instances of game stoppages (one of them causing an entire delay) happened just last year and this year. Most recently, a game between Fairleigh Dickinson and Long Island was delayed for almost half an hour after several players on the FDU team got stuck in an elevator (via SI.com):

Thankfully, everyone was safe and the game went on as expected.

Another stoppage happened in November last year, in a game featuring Nevada and Sacramento State.

The game had to be stopped for several minutes in the second half due to a bunch of bats "dive-bombing" onto the floor--apparently something that's already happened in the Lawlor Events Center in Reno back in 2017 (via MLive.com):