North Carolina has been one of the biggest surprises so far this tournament after the 8-seed Tar Heels thoroughly dominated 9-seed Marquette in round one. They kept rolling on Saturday, building as much as a 25-point lead on No. 1 seed Baylor with 10:47 to play in the second half.
Then the tides turned as UNC’s Brady Manek was hit with a Flagrant 2 foul on a box-out. Manek reached back, elbowing Baylor’s Jeremy Sochan in the process. It looked like a normal play upon second look, but the refs went to the monitor.
Manek, who had a team-high 26 points at the time, was assessed the strictest penalty, leading to him being ejected. Here’s the play:
Brady Manek got ejected for this elbow
Manek had 26 points prior to his ejectionpic.twitter.com/ggNHNJ27M5
— Pickswise (@Pickswise) March 19, 2022
Baylor went on a monster run following the call, cutting the lead back to single digits. The internet was aflame at the call.