The Wake Forest-North Carolina State men's basketball game Tuesday night that was broadcast nationally on ESPN proved to be one of the most entertaining games of 2024 thus far — albeit not because of the basketball.
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In the final seconds of the game (which NC State won 83-76), Wolfpack guard DJ Horne was sent to the free throw line and appeared to flip off a referee with both hands prior to taking his shots.
DJ Horne congratulates Wake for a game well played pic.twitter.com/RFYteDheD9
— Mark Armstrong (@MarkPArmstrong) January 17, 2024
Horne — who finished the game with a team-high 21 points, and is shooting a ridiculous 42.1% on 3-pointers this season — took to social media to apologize for the gesture after the game: "My sincere apologies for what happened at the end of the game. I got caught up in the heat of the moment and made a disrespectful gesture that I should have never done. That's not who I am!"
My sincere apologies for what happened at the end of the game. I got caught up in the heat of the moment and made a disrespectful gesture that I should have never done. That’s not who I am!
— DJ Horne (@djhorne0) January 17, 2024
While it's unclear why Horne was upset at the referee — considering that he clearly got the foul call — he might have still been upset about how the referees handled the game's tumultuous first half.
The absurdity started when NC State head coach Kevin Keatts was ejected with less than four minutes left in the first half after he argued what seemed like an obvious foul that wasn't called by the referees.
Kevin Keatts just got ejected for this pic.twitter.com/fI7KFF4Z1H
— Pregame Empire (@PregameEmpire) January 17, 2024
After the game, Keatts said of the ejection, "I deserved the technical, because I thought the call was awful. I thought they missed the call. ... In comparison to the way that all calls were made, I didn't think I deserved to get tossed. I didn't see the second one coming that quick. That will be something that we talk about. I absolutely knew what I was doing on the first (technical), but not the second one."
Keatts' ejection wasn't the end of the game's first-half excitement.
Just seconds before the half came to a close, a scuffle between Wake Forest and NC State players prompted referee Jeff Anderson — who, hilariously, has a popular fan account on X because of his penchant for doing "high knees" as he runs up and down the court — to dish out a few more technical fouls to the players involved.
6 technicals handed out by Jeff tonight. He’s not messing around. pic.twitter.com/tr5q29oNbc
— Jeffrey Anderson Fan Account (@highkneesref) January 17, 2024
Surely, ESPN isn't stoked about how this Atlantic Coast Conference game went off the rails, considering that it had decided to broadcast the contest on national TV.
Yet, fans who tuned in surely got their share of entertainment for the evening.
