NEW YORK (AP) - Duke guard Grayson Allen received a flagrant 1 foul for hip checking North Carolina’s Garrison Brooks as the Tar Heels forward was running up the court late in the first half of an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament semifinal on Friday night.
Brooks went down hard and stayed down in the backcourt as North Carolina scored. Officials stopped play and went to the courtside monitor to check a replay. Allen clearly stuck his backside out enough to bump the unsuspecting Brooks while the 6-foot-9 freshman was in the middle of a stride. Brooks was OK. He made two free throws with 52.7 second left.
“They got a fast break and I bumped him and fouled him,” Allen said during the postgame news conference.
Brooks told reporters he felt Allen intentionally bumped him, and when Allen was asked about it, coach Mike Krzyzewski jumped in.
“Any foul in the game is not . you don’t want any foul,” Coach K said. “So that was another foul in a game. Do you think that was the only time someone was hipped in the game? If you look in the low post, it’s going on all the time. So it happened at half court. They got it. It’s done. And that didn’t win or lose the game.”
Allen, a senior, was reprimanded by the ACC for tripping two opponents during his sophomore season. He was stripped of his captaincy by Duke for another trip as a junior.
Some of the North Carolina players who go back to their high school days playing with and against Allen laughed off his latest incident.
Berry was kidding with Allen on the court right after the foul was called.
“I told them, they’re always going to get on him about that,” Berry said. “Any little trip he does, if he puts a finger on somebody, you know they’re going to react. So it’s always a joking thing with me and Grayson. I don’t have any hatred toward him. We’re good friends. We’re both from Florida, and we played with each other. But I just told him that you’ve just got to watch yourself because anything you do like that you know they’re going to get on you about. That’s why we laughed it off.
North Carolina senior Theo Pinson added: “There was nothing. We’re cool with him.”
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