That is
an SI article title. The author is Pat Forde. That he wrote it is very important, because he has a very long history of bashing the ACC and especially UNC. Forde began taking potshots at the ACC many years ago when he worked in Louisville. He began his career at the Louisville Courier-Journal and stayed nearly 20 years. He hated that Denny Crum had almost 0 academic standards, and attacking the the ACC was usually his way to deflect such matters. When Louisville got the ACC invite, I joked that finally Pat Forde might stop making the ACC his hated whipping boy.
Here is the key quote in the article: "Ultimately, the crew of Donnie Eppley, Kipp Kissinger and Brent Hampton made the right call: It was a flagrant 2 foul and Manek had to go. The strange part is everything that happened thereafter.
The game dissolved into a street fight, with Baylor implementing an extremely physical full-court press that reduced a 25-point deficit to a manageable number in shockingly rapid time. Rather than rein in the contact, the refs became bystanders. The Bears bumped and shoved and slapped, and the whistles did not blow—well, at least not against the aggressor that was playing desperately to get back into the game. The whistles blew many times against North Carolina."
His second paragraph is simply wrong, but then I would expect nothing less from that wanker. I did however notice his tweet immediately after the game excoriating the zebras, and yes, given that it was us on the receiving end, it was quite surprrising coming from him, and did get noticed. Look, if nothing else, we can only hope the fallout shines some light on a chronic problem in college basketball.
While especially egregious, this was not a one-off incident. In 2016 I got ridiculed by a few loud voices on here for pointing up the (what should've been obvious) fact that Michael Stephens was absolute poison for us... to the point that our coaching staff dredded seeing him listed for a game. Even before the Natty game, we had him a lot during that season, and to point out that our record with him was a statistical outlier is like pointing out that Vladamir Putin is an authoritarian,
The reason Stephens got so many plum assignments was his "mechanics" were solid and he was just enough of a preener and showman to get himself noticed (nice feat for that sawed-off f***er). Problem was, that hid an agenda that he would insert into games. Literally every coach/player in my circle noticed his impact on the nova natty game, but somehow that was taboo to talk about for some.
Interesting thing happened though. The first part was (I heard this thru the grapevine) that his shenanigans started to get noticed and talked about (including from our end), and we didn't see him as much until he shows up in the 2017 Natty game, in which he made at least 2 egregiously bad calls against us that would have certainly affected the outcome, had Mike Eades not given us subsequent "makeups" (and c'mon, any of you who have coached or reffed should be able to spot makeups when you see them).
Also fortunately, the third ref was John Higgins (one of the best on the game), so Stephens effectively got boxed. Now, the rest of this adds some speculation on top of what I heard. Eades carries some weight, and ended up later being offered to head the ref consortium of several conferences headlined by the SEC, and the rumor was that he had some things to say about Stephens on his way out the door. I mean, after all, if a zebra is giving makeups then he's noticed what prompted the need, IYKWIM.
Again, it's speculation, but I doubt it was an accident that Stephens stopped getting plum assignments after that Natty game, and last year I believe (?), he accepted an administrative role himself for another conference consortium. So anyway, while I'd love to know the whole back-story, lemme just say how glad I am we don't have to deal with that little wanker any more. The bad news is there far too many others who need to go...
