North Carolina Eases Out Clemson but Coaches Are Left Fighting Mad

A blowout turned into a blowup. North Carolina Coach Dean Smith and Clemson Coach Rick Barnes had to be separated at midcourt during the waning minutes of the Tar Heels’ 78-62 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament quarterfinal victory Friday night.

With 3:10 remaining, Clemson’s 6-foot-7, 230-pound freshman center, Iker Iturbe, committed a hard, but hardly dirty, foul on Jerry Stackhouse as the star Tar Heel swingman drove to the basket. An angry Smith immediately began pointing at the Clemson center, yelled, “Iturbe! Iturbe,” and then began a stare-down session.

Barnes, enraged by Smith’s actions, requested a midcourt meeting.

“You coach your team, I’ll coach my team,” Barnes told Smith. “You don’t have any right to talk to my players.”

Smith later apologized but remained convinced that the foul was unnecessarily hard.

“He creamed one of my players on a layup,” Smith said.

The game ended with a near-fight as both benches cleared after a collision between North Carolina’s Donald Williams and Clemson’s Bill Harder on a Tar Heel dunk attempt.