ESPN is featuring Karl Hess’ ejection of Googs and Corch across all of their networks during college basketball coverage tonight. Kudos to Andy Katz who criticized Hess at halftime of the Florida-Arkansas game for needing to have thicker skin and pointing out the margin in today’s game was an astounding 18 points at the time of Hess’ antics.
A couple of quick mind-boggling statistics to ponder for a moment before the news updates —
* Chris Corchiani played in 124 games for NC State and NEVER got ejected.
* Despite some of the worst profanity and treatment that any college coach in America can imagine, Karl Hess has never ejected Coach K from a basketball game.
WTVD’s Mark Armstrong tweeted tonight:
Don’t know if it’s been reported elsewhere, but Debbie Yow confirms she’s had a convo with Swofford about the ejections. Said ‘more to come’
and then just followed up with the following:
NCSU issues statement saying in part that ACC has agreed to issue a statement tonight.
Joe Giglio has an update at the N&O tonight at this link but has followed up with more updates on his twitter account.
From @jpgiglio —
N.C. State AD Debbie Yow says the school has asked for an explanation for the Corchiani/Gugliotta incident but has not yet received one
Yow said: ‘We want to make sure our fans are being treated fairly.’
More from Yow: ‘I’ve been an AD for 21 years, 18 in the ACC, and I have never seen two people ejected like that.’
According to the ACC handbook, Hess has the power to eject fans, but also has to provide an explanation
If Hess interpreted the ACC handbook literally, Cameron would be empty 2 seconds into every game
Wasn’t picking on Duke there, just making a point … Hess is one of the best officials in the ACC but he made a mistake today
From Giglio’s article —
After the game, Corchiani was still looking for a reason why Hess stopped the game and asked him and Gugliotta to leave.
“I’d like to know why it happened,” Corchiani said. “You could hear us, there’s no doubt you could hear us, and we said something about three or four different times but not once did we use profanity and we never threatened him.”
Corchiani, who played point guard for the Wolfpack from 1988 to 1991 and is one of three players in ACC history with 1,000 assists, said he attended the game with his wife, Stewart, and 11-year-old daughter, Annabelle. Gugliotta, an All-ACC forward for the Wolfpack, played from 1989 to ’92 and was an NBA All-Star with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1997.
“We were just fans, cheering and yelling like everybody else,” Corchiani said.
After Hess’ confrontation with Corchiani and Gugliotta, N.C. State briefly cut into what was a 20-point Florida State lead in the second half. Scott Wood was fouled by Deividas Dulkys at the 6:40 mark, before Hess went to the scorer’s table, on a 3-point attempt.
The atmosphere in the arena was noticeably livelier after Corchiani and Gugliotta walked off the court and watched the remainder of the game from the tunnel leading to the N.C. State locker room.
Wood made all three of his free throws and followed up on the next trip with a 3-pointer to cut FSU’s advantage to 59-47 but that was as close as the Pack would get the rest of the way.
“If State would have come back and won, for me it would have been worth it,” Corchiani said.
Hess declined comment to an Associated Press reporter after the game. ACC head of officials John Clougherty also declined comment on Saturday afternoon.
N.C. State athletic director Debbie Yow was trying to get an explanation from the conference on Saturday about the incident and was waiting to hear back from the league before commenting.
