Connecticut University is playing Villanova in what should be just another game in the increasingly popular women's college basketball league.
But just before the opening whistle Connecticut player Kelley Hunt complains of stomach pains, and is replaced at the last minute by teammate Nykesha Sales.
Sales doesn't seem that match-fit either. She limps on to the court in a leg brace, but immediately gets the ball and shoots a two-pointer. The crowd goes wild, and while Sales' teammates surround her in an orgy of celebration, they do not stop the Villanova team taking the ball back down the other end for an uncontested score.
Meanwhile, Hunt has suddenly made a miraculous recovery on the sideline and the referees allow her to enter the game to replace Sales, who limps back off to a hero's acclaim.
What's wrong with the picture? Is it sport or a game of fantasy? More to the point, is it sportsmanship? That is the debate raging across the college basketball scene after a bizarrely orchestrated conspiracy between both teams, the referees and the league's administrators allowed the 21-year-old Sales to score her basket when by all rights she should have been at home nursing a crippled leg.
The above scenario, which took place in the opening 30 seconds of the game last Tuesday, was choreographed purely so the injured Sales could get the two points she needed to break the all-time scoring record for her university. And it has sparked a heated discussion on whether America's professional and college sporting organisations place too much emphasis on headline-grabbing individual records than on the purity and beauty of the sports.