THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 11, 1995 TAG: 9503110422
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENSBORO LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
The hard feelings evident early in North Carolina's first-round ACC tournament game with Clemson on Friday boiled over into a confrontation between coaches that generated more sparks than any of the night's basketball.
Elbows, shoves and bodies on the floor were prevalent, as in the previous two games between the teams, during North Carolina's ponderous 78-62 victory over the outmanned, undersized Tigers. But with 3:10 left to play and the Tar Heels ahead, 69-53, Dean Smith and Clemson's Rick Barnes went nose-to-nose in front of the scorer's table in a heated verbal altercation.
At issue was a foul delivered against North Carolina's Jerry Stackhouse by Iker Iturbe as Stackhouse drove for a layup, and Smith's reaction to the foul.
Though the harshness of foul did not appear much out of the ordinary, Smith rose from the bench and pointed repeatedly at Iturbe while saying something to him. Barnes, angry that Smith would address one of his players, called timeout and asked referee Frank Scagliotta to bring Smith to the scorer's table.
Smith walked toward Clemson's bench and Barnes met him halfway, barking all the while at Smith. Smith answered and the exchange grew more heated as Barnes, like a manager arguing with an umpire, tried to inch around Scagliotta to get closer to Smith.
Scagliotta finally separated the coaches - Barnes was hit with a technical, Smith was not - but order was hardly restored. Stackhouse was slapped with a technical with 1:44 to play for pushing Bill Harder into North Carolina's bench during a scrap for a rebound. And at the buzzer, as Donald Williams missed an alley-oop dunk, Harder bumped Williams' legs and was accosted by North Carolina's Pat Sullivan and Shammond Williams.
No punches were thrown. But later Friday, it was learned that ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan and supervisor of officials Fred Barakat were reviewing tapes of the incident and that it was possible an unidentified Tar Heel would be suspended for today's semifinal against Maryland. ``I don't know what Dean wants us to do,'' said Barnes, who also met with Corrigan and Barakat after the game but would not comment about their conversation. ``(Stackhouse) is going in for a layup, our help side was right where it needed to be. In that situation, you either step in and take a charge or try to block it, and Iturbe did that. Once he did that, I looked down and Dean's pointing at him, talking to him. I don't think that should happen.''
When he met Smith at halfcourt, ``I simply said to him, `You coach your team, I'll coach my team. You don't have the right to talk to my players,' '' said Barnes, who was ejected from the first meeting between the teams.
In his interview session, Smith, who has been troubled all season by Clemson's physical play, apologized for addressing Iturbe.
``I'm sorry these things occur,'' Smith said. ``Where I was wrong was to yell at Iturbe, point my finger at him. I've done that on three occasions in my coaching career, and I'm never happy about it. But in each case, it's always (because) I don't want one of my players to be hurt needlessly.''
Smith admitted he expects physical play from Iturbe, a Spaniard. But he stopped short of calling Iturbe a dirty player, saying only that Iturbe ``does things much the same as they do in European basketball,'' which is known for rough play.
``I didn't (call Iturbe dirty) and you're not going to get me to say it,'' Smith said. by CNB