The Fiery and Fickle Relationship Between College Basketball Coaches and Refs

Posted Mar 7, 2019
“Dean Smith said to me after he was retired, ‘John, that night we played Clemson, you called that block/charge and that was the wrong call,'’’ says John Clougherty, a referee for 30 years who later spent 11 years as the ACC’s director of officiating. Smith was referencing a game from the 1980s. “And I’m thinking, I’ve had 15,000 block/charges. But he remembers that.” (Sports Illustrated)

Related: Basketball, Basketball Recruiting

UNC men's basketball's bench has potential, but it's built on unknowns
Jaydon Young said he doesn’t think about the looks he’s going to get when he enters a game. He just wants to play hard. And...
Thu Oct 29, 2026

Carolina Basketball Looking to Shake Slow Starts Entering Regular Season
Slow starts were an issue during Hubert Davis’ final seasons at UNC, and through three exhibitions under Michael Malone, that trend has yet to disappear...
Thu Oct 29, 2026

UNC Basketball's preseason wasn't always pretty, but October isn't the time to panic
The preseason is over. So, it's fair to ask: how are UNC fans feeling ahead of the season? If the answer is slightly concerned, that's...
Thu Oct 29, 2026

UNC graduate student took data science to the hardwood
As an undergraduate student at North Carolina, Boris Crnjak homed in on statistics and data science as his fields of study. “I’ll figure out the...
Thu Oct 29, 2026