Billy Packer Blows Call on Play that Breaks Tyler Hansbrough’s Nose
Sunday, Duke and North Carolina had their annual game to close the regular season in college basketball. Now, as an NC State fan, the best thing about this game is that one of the teams has to lose. But as a basketball fan, what I saw and heard in this game shocked me.
UNC held a double-digit lead late in the game when Carolina went to the free throw line with 14.5 seconds remaining. What shocked me is that both coaches kept big-name players in the game, even with the stoppage of play with the foul shots.
Tyler Hansbrough, perhaps the most important player for the Tar Heels, rebounded a miss and went up with a follow shot. Several Duke players went up to contest the shot. One Duke player hit Hansbrough and the ball came out of his hands. Then Gerald Henderson hit Hansbrough and ended up breaking his nose, with blood spewing all over the court.
Hansbrough got up ready to fight, but he was quickly restrained. He eventually walked straight into the locker room. After order was restored, the officials met to discuss the foul.
The game was broadcast on CBS, which had its top analyst, Billy Packer, providing color commentary. Packer played collegiate ball at Wake Forest University and has been accused of having a bias towards the Atlantic Coast Conference. Former broadcast partner Al McGuire joked that Packer spelled his name pACCer. With two high profile ACC schools involved in the contest, I was curious to see how Packer would handle what appeared to me as a flagrant foul.
Since the refs discussed the play for quite some time, we had the advantage of seeing numerous replays of the incident. After each replay, Packer confirmed that the play was not malicious and that Henderson did not mean to hurt Hansbrough.
I couldn’t disagree more.
Henderson, a swing man, stands 6-foot-6. Hansbrough, a post player, checks in at 6-foot-10. Henderson leaped in the air, ostensibly to block the shot. Now, if you’re going to block a shot of a player who has a good four inches of height on you, the best way to do that is to extend your arm as straight as you can up into the air.
Henderson had his arm bent at the elbow and hit Hansbrough with his forearm, which hardly qualifies as good shot-blocking technique.
Further making it unlikely that he was merely trying to block the shot is that Henderson twisted his body after his leap and had his head turned (and seemingly had his eyes closed) when he made contact with Hansbrough.
Now, I generally like Billy Packer as an analyst. But I think he missed the boat on this one. But that’s okay. He’s there to give his opinion and he certainly was not shy about providing his take on the incident.
When the refs broke from their conference, they ejected Henderson stating that his actions were “a combative and confrontational action” that required an ejection. Along with the dismissal comes a one-game suspension, which makes Duke’s long road to the ACC Tournament title an even more difficult task.
Hopefully, UNC coach Roy Williams will learn not to keep his star players in the game when the outcome has been decided, especially when he has an easy chance to remove them like he had in this contest.
