Dan Hurley’s Roger Ayers headbutt explanation adds fuel to Duke fans’ fury

Let me preface the forthcoming article by saying this before all the Duke haters come for me: Duke did not deserve to win the game on Sunday. They blew it. Plain and simple. The late collapse was inexplicable and unacceptable, and Jon Scheyer has nobody to blame but himself for it.

At the same time, Dan Hurley 100% deserved a technical foul for getting all up in Roger Ayers' face in the aftermath of Braylon Mullins' dagger three-pointer. Hurley is a petulant child at all times, and his over-the-top reactions are nothing new, but he gets away with way too much on the bench.

Regardless of the game situation, Hurley should have been assessed at least a technical foul, if not two and an ejection for making contact with an official in the manner that he did. His explanation of it in the aftermath is, quite frankly, BS.

Hurley joined Pardon My Take recently and called the headbutt a "head hug" and compared it to reindeer affectionately nuzzling up with one another. I wish I was making that up.

"All these refs are different; they all got different thresholds and personalities. Roger's like very playful, the guy is one of the greatest refs ever," Hurley said. "He don't mess up a lot of calls. When you're going too far he'll give you a look and he'll "T" your ass, but he's playful, he's funny. He messes with you during the game. You bust his chops back. I would say that there's a lot of coaches that he refs that you have a much different type of relationship with Roger than you do with pretty much every other type of official."

You can see the video below:

Dan Hurley's explanation of the Roger Ayers headbutt is total nonsense

The proof is in the pudding, too. Ayers is one of college basketball's best officials, and it's not a coincidence that he was not among the officials chosen to ref the Final Four this weekend. Ayers has officiated seven Final Fours, including last year's, but he won't be making the trip to Indianapolis this year.

It doesn't take much to make the leap of the NCAA not being pleased with Ayers' handling of Hurley at the end of the game. Regardless of the situation, that kind of behavior cannot be allowed, and Hurley is fortunate that Ayers didn't hit him with a technical that would have given Duke a chance to win the game at the free-throw line.

It's what he deserved, though. It's beyond time for Hurley to get put in his place for the way he acts toward officials during games. With any justice in the world, it'll happen during the Final Four and prove costly for UConn.