UNC Basketball: Poor officiating, free throw shooting cost Tar Heels

Florida State Seminoles, worst officiating crew in history top UNC basketball in ACC Tournament semifinal

Balsa Koprivica scored 17 points and pulled down 11 rebounds, as the Florida State Seminoles beat the North Carolina Tar Heels 69-66 in the ACC Tournament semifinals on Friday night. Koprivica also committed 17 personal fouls which went uncalled, a new season-high for the sophomore center.

Other Florida State highlights on the night include scoring a bucket after standing on the out-of-bounds line, taking a UNC-shot ball right off of the cylinder and a “missed” traveling violation in the game’s waning moments that would have given North Carolina the ball back with a chance to tie or win the game.

The aforementioned is just a snapshot of how bad this fairly important game was called by a group of gainfully employed referees that wouldn’t be trusted to officiate a 3rd grade rec league game. No, seriously. I rarely stoop to blaming the refs for the result of games, but this one is up there with the worst screw jobs in recent history.

But while we’re placing blame, the Tar Heels missed 11 free throws. ELEVEN. Out of 25. That’s not acceptable in any circumstance, but certainly not in a game that you shoot just 23-for-68 from the floor (33.8 percent), and 6-for-18 from three-point range (33 percent).

Caleb Love led the Tar Heels in scoring with 13 points, but hit just 4-of-14 shots for the game. He also dished out just one assist to four turnovers, but did manage to connect on 3-of-5 from three-point range. Armando Bacot added 12 points and six rebounds, while freshman sharpshooter Kerwin Walton had 11 points, five rebounds and three made three-pointers.

The Tar Heels will now await their seeding for the NCAA Tournament, which will officially begin next Thursday.