There’s no question that the flagrant 2 call on UNC forward Brady Manek changed the momentum of Saturday’s game against No. 1 Baylor. After Manek went out, Baylor went on a large run to come back from 25 down and force overtime.
Thankfully for UNC, and probably college basketball, the Tar Heels pulled it out or we’d be talking about that call for years down the line. On Monday, head coach Hubert Davis revisited that call as Manek threw an elbow to Baylor freshman Jeremy Sochan and he adamantly disagreed with the referee’s decision.
Here is what Davis said about the call in his weekly radio show via Inside Carolina:
“I wasn’t pleased, wasn’t happy and I don’t agree with the Flagrant 2 foul,” Davis said. “Brady should not have been ejected. It should have been a Flagrant 1 foul. It was very physical, very chippy throughout the entire game. I think a Flagrant 2 foul is something that should be delivered when someone purposely intends to throw an elbow and Brady didn’t do that. It was a natural play where his elbow got up and hit the Baylor player but it wasn’t intended to do that. I told the ref that Brady’s not that type of player. I was very upset and I disagreed with that call. I think it’s interesting that the ref that called the Flagrant 2 on Brady also called a Flagrant 2 on Brady while he was at Oklahoma. I think that’s interesting. It changed the game completely. I’m not sure if that would have been the call had it been a closer game.”
As you can tell, Davis was clearly not happy with the call and thought it shouldn’t have been a flagrant 2 which resulted in the ejection.
The good news is that UNC still won the game and will be playing in the Sweet 16. And they are going to need Manek to be on his game to beat UCLA.
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