Longtime ACC official Karl Hess returned to the ACC tournament on Thursday night, working the Wake Forest-Maryland game.

Hess did not work the ACC tournament last year in Atlanta, which set off a controversy when three officials taped Hess' initials to their sneakers for the first game of the tournament.

Hess was involved in a firestorm last season with N.C. State after he had former players Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta ejected from the Florida State game in Raleigh.
Hess, who has worked 22 ACC games this season, the most of any official, has not refereed an N.C. State game yet this season.

ATLANTA — Veteran ACC official Karl Hess will not work any games at the ACC tournament, ACC head of officials John Clougherty said Thursday.

Hess was invited to work at the tournament but declined because he did not want to be a distraction, Clougherty said. Hess is working the Big East tournament instead.

Hess' absence is not a form of punishment for the incident at the N.C. State-Florida State game on Feb. 18, Clougherty said, but the three officials who worked the first game on Thursday — Jamie Luckie, Mike Eades and Bernard Clinton — each wore a small piece of white tape on their left sneaker with the initials "KH."

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried had avoided adding commentary to the incident involving two former Wolfpack players and official Karl Hess from Saturday's game until a late Monday night appearance at a student rally on campus.

At the "Ram Roast," aptly near the Freedom of Expression tunnel, Gottfried offered his unfiltered comments about Hess and his decision to eject Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta in the second half of Saturday's game. A student taped the impromptu question-and-answer session and put it first on Facebook and then the video found its way to YouTube.

Gottfried's comments from the video:

The ACC publicly reprimanded basketball referee Karl Hess on Monday night for failing to follow protocol in ejecting two N.C. State basketball greats from Saturday's game at the RBC Center.

Hess had Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta removed from their seats behind the scorers' table with 6 minutes and 40 seconds left in the Wolfpack's loss to Florida State on Saturday because of "excessive demonstration on several calls," according to an email N.C. State received from Hess on Monday night.

Three Points from N.C. State's 76-62 loss to Florida State on Saturday:

1) Reloading the gun

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried compared the timing of the turnaround from Thursday's loss at Duke to Saturday's game with Florida State to the setup of the NCAA tournament.

One problem with that comparison: You don't have to play again after a loss in the NCAA tournament.

It's tough to reload the gun that quickly, even under normal circumstances, and this did not qualify as normal.

Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta will be back at the RBC Center on Tuesday as honored guests of N.C. State.

Wolfpack athletic director Debbie Yow said Sunday that the school will honor the 1988-89 N.C. State basketball team, which won the ACC regular-season title, before Tuesday's home game against North Carolina.

Corchiani and Gugliotta were both members of coach Jim Valvano's penultimate team, which went 10-4 in the ACC and advanced to the Round of 16 in the NCAA tournament. Both former players were involved in an incident with referee Karl Hess in N.C. State's 76-62 loss to Florida State on Saturday at the RBC Center.

RALEIGH — Chris Corchiani earned the nickname "Fire" for his ebullient personality when he played point guard for N.C. State. But in 124 college basketball games, Corchiani never got ejected. Twenty-one years after his last college game, that changed on Saturday.

With 6 minutes and 40 seconds left in N.C. State's 76-62 loss to Florida State on Saturday, head referee Karl Hess had Corchiani and fellow former Wolfpack great Tom Gugliotta removed from their front-row seats behind the scorers' table.

"That's a first for me," Corchiani said.
 

• Tudor's Take

Tracy Smith was half right in his criticism of the officials working N.C. State's 67-59 loss to Wake Forest on Sunday.

It's the part he got wrong, "favoring" Wake Forest, that got Smith suspended for Wednesday's trip to Arizona. If Smith had just pointed out that there were too many touch fouls called — and there's no disputing that — then he would have been OK, even to be commended for his honesty.