An eventful return to NC State for Hess

Veteran ACC official Karl Hess went almost three years without working an N.C. State basketball game.

It took him about 4 minutes to call a technical foul on Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried in N.C. State’s 55-54 loss to Wofford on Sunday.

It had been 1,031 days since Hess had refereed an N.C. State game. On Feb. 18, 2012, Hess ejected former N.C. State players Tom Gugliotta and Chris Corchiani from the Wolfpack’s 76-62 home loss to Florida State at PNC Arena.

If Hess was hoping to ease back into working an N.C. State game, that didn’t happen Sunday. At 15:58 in the first half, Hess whistled Gottfried for a technical.

Gottfried had wanted a foul call on guard Trevor Lacey’s drive to the basket. On Hess’ way past N.C. State’s bench, Gottfried told Hess he thought Lacey was tripped. Hess turned and quickly fired off the technical.

Gottfried said he found out earlier in the season Hess would be working one of the Wolfpack’s games. He said he hadn’t thought about it since.

“It really wasn’t an issue for me,” Gottfried said. “It’s not something we thought about or I talked about with my team. It really wasn’t any kind of a factor for us.”

It was a big deal at the end of the 2011-12 season, Gottfried’s first at N.C. State.

Hess has worked the Final Four six times and called the ACC title game nine times, both the highest benchmarks of official’s quality. He skipped the 2012 ACC tournament and worked the Big East tournament instead, to avoid making the controversy any bigger than it was at the time.

The issue boiled over at the 2012 ACC tournament in Atlanta, when the three officials who worked the first game of the tournament put the initials “KH” on their sneakers.

Corchiani, whose son is a freshman on the N.C. State team, was seated behind the scorer’s table for Sunday’s game, but there was no repeat of the infamous incident. Hess had the Wolfpack legends escorted from the building early in the second half of the loss to Florida State for arguing calls.

Hess, Corchiani and Gugliotta had reconciled long before Sunday, with an assist from N.C. State baseball coach Elliott Avent. Hess’ son is a college baseball prospect and met Avent at an AAU game. Avent had put Hess in touch with the former Wolfpack players.

It was all seemingly water under the bridge until Hess’ quick trigger on the technical for Gottfried.

“I don’t know if I ever got an explanation,” Gottfried said. “I don’t know that they have to give me one. I never swore. I never used any foul language.

“I thought that Trevor got tripped on the play driving to the basket. I told him, ‘Our guy got tripped,’ and I got a technical for that.”

N.C. State finished with 14 fouls, and Wofford had 15. Both teams attempted 13 free throws.

Wofford’s Eric Garcia made both of the free throws from Gottfried’s technical.

This story was originally published December 14, 2014 at 9:15 PM.