The View from Courtside
From my seat at the scorer’s table, right next to where the officials huddle to review the monitor, I could see that Karl Hess and Bryan Kersey didn’t want to make a call that ejected Travis McKie from today’s game against N.C. State. I could see it in their eyes. As for the game, it was all over but the shouting by that time. And McKie is not a troublemaker. But they looked at the play once, and they looked at it again, and felt they had no choice.
So they called the Flagrant II technical that sent McKie to the locker room with 11 1/2 minutes remaining.
Later Brian Morrison, the ACC’s assistant commissioner for media relations, arranged that Lenox Rawlings and I could see the play as well. What many people don’t realize is that sportswriters, sitting courtside, are often at the mercy of fans at home watching a game and all its replays.
What I saw was McKie drive to his left, get stripped by Lorenzo Brown as he’s taking the ball up and, with his arms flying above his head, driving his elbow into Wood’s mouth. I saw what Hess and Kersey saw and I can’t argue with their call.
The savings grace is that because the foul did not involve fisticuffs, McKie’s penalty was over when the game ended. He’ll be eligible for Thursday’s game at Duke.
When coach Jeff Bzdelik had finished his post-game address, I made a bee-line to McKie and asked him about the play.
What happened?
“I was in the post,’’ McKie said. “I had the ball. I went up for a layup. I got stripped. The next thing I knew it was an offensive foul and I got ejected. And I can’t argue it. I didn’t intentionally try to hurt Scott. I think Scott knows that. I know that. We talked afterwards. I just had to respect the call and to leap forward.’‘
Did you recognize that you elbowed him?
“Not at all,’’ McKie said. “I thought they called a charge and he just fell and it was over with. I saw he got hit in the mouth and I told him `Are you all right?’ And he said `yeah,’
“They said I elbowed him in the mouth and I had to get thrown out. So I had to respect it.’‘
How much frustration was involved?
“When people look up to you to lead this team and carry the load of this team and you don’t do it and on top of that you get ejected it’s so sad,’’ McKie said. “So this is probably the worst game of my college career. This is a bad loss for us but I think this is a turning point for me individually. I think I need to do a lot more things off the court and on the court to help myself and my team get better. So I have to change.’‘
It’s to the great credit of Steve Shutt and Scott Wortman of the Wake media relations department that they made McKie available. It’s always been my contention that if a player is available when when he scores 25 at Maryland, then he needs to be available when he scores two and is ejected. But not everybody sees it that way.
Both McKie and Bzdelik said that they talked with Wood later and that Wood acknowledged the elbow was not intentional. I’ll have to take their word for it because N.C. State, as it so happened, only made two players available and Wood wasn’t one.
Another reason I’m glad I cover Wake.