Ethan Dietz Dies After Head Injury in College Basketball Game

Ethan Dietz, a 20-year-old sophomore forward on the Connors State College men's basketball team, died Tuesday after suffering a head injury during a game the previous Saturday in Texas.

The injury occurred in the second half of Connors State's matchup against Grayson College on November 22. Video footage of the game shows Dietz, a 6-foot-8 player from Vilonia, Arkansas, spinning toward the basket for a layup when an opponent elbowed him in the head as he descended. Dietz immediately grabbed his head and stepped away from the play, appearing in pain. A teammate assisted him to the bench, where he sat for a few minutes before re-entering the game two minutes later. Shortly after returning, he signaled to his coach while holding his head and was removed for the remainder of the contest. He remained on the bench during postgame handshakes and needed help from a teammate to walk to the locker room.

The team returned to the college's campus in Warner, Oklahoma, about 170 miles west of Dietz's hometown. That evening, emergency medical services responded to reports of an unresponsive person around 9:16 p.m. First responders transported Dietz to a hospital in Tulsa, roughly 30 minutes...