Earlier this season, Roy Williams got a lot of flack in the press and from opposing fans for having a Presbyterian fan kicked out of the Dean Dome after heckling one of his players. Well, apparently this type of in-game madness is contagious, because we have a couple of other coaches losing it while their teams were in the middle of heated contests.
In last week’s game at Miami, the Devils were in a rather tightly-contested matchup with the Canes when Coach K had the game stopped and security track down a fan that was using conch shell as a noisemaker. I guess K had been called “Piggy” one too many times as a kid and was having a few bad flashbacks.
The most recent example of a coach getting into it with some opposing fans is perhaps the worst of the bunch, however, as former UNC headman Matt Doherty apparently got into it with some Memphis fans during their recent matchup with SMU:
Memphis fans were jawing at Doherty in the second half of SMU’s 76-63 loss to the Tigers on Saturday when the coach reportedly wheeled around and started dishing some smack talk right back.
He called the school “Memphis Tech.” He insisted the banner from the Tigers’ scandal-tainted 2008 Final Four appearance should come down. He even boasted he “went to a real school,” prompting a prominent Memphis booster to yell right back at the North Carolina alum, “Yeah, and they fired you.”
Burned! As much of a UNC homer as I still am, gotta give the win to the Memphis fan on that one. Man, that still stings. Between this incident, the chest-bumping with K’s coaching staff and his notorious comments about Duke’s ugly cheerleaders, Doherty might want to think about taking a few anger management courses wherever his next job takes him - and I say next job because it sure seems like the writing’s on the wall for him at SMU. He’s just making it easier for them to let him go.
