Did Kyle Filipowski trip Harrison Ingram during the Duke-UNC game? Depends who you ask

Everyone saw Duke’s Kyle Filipowski and North Carolina’s Harrison Ingram wind up lying on the court at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday night.

The difference of opinion in how they ended up there during the strange play with six minutes left in the first half of UNC’s 84-79 win over the Blue Devils depends on your point of view.

In the moment, Ingram and UNC coach Hubert Davis implored game officials to call a flagrant foul on Filipowski, who stuck his leg out behind him as he was trying to stand up. Ingram, running up the court to join his team’s defense after picking himself up off the ground, tripped over Filipowski’s right leg to fall again.

“We’ll look back and see what happened,” Ingram said after the game. “I feel like he tripped me, but I’m not really sure. I haven’t seen the film yet.”

The 7-foot Filipowski denied attempting to trip the 6-7 Ingram.

“I’m not really too sure how that whole situation happened, to be honest,” Filipowski said “I just, I was literally just getting up. My foot slipped. I don’t know how I caught him.”

Filipowski added that he thought he was the only player from either team left on that end of the court.

“I didn’t see him coming from anywhere,” Filipowski said. “I didn’t even know he was he was back with me. I thought I was the only one left.”

Over on UNC’s bench, Davis immediately yelled for the game officials to penalize Duke and Filipowski. When play stopped a short time later, Ingram approached official Ted Valentine, saying, “He tripped me! He tripped me!”

“I feel like he tripped me, but I’m not really sure,” Ingram said. “I thought he did. I’m not sure if it was a basketball play or not. I haven’t really seen the video, but you know, I’ll see it.”

Game officials did not call a flagrant foul on Filipowski. They didn’t even go to the replay monitor to review the play.

Of course, any possible tripping by a Duke player brings up memories of Grayson Allen, the current NBA player who was disciplined for tripping opposing players three times in 2016, when he played for the Blue Devils.

Allen tripped players from Louisville and Florida State as a sophomore in February 2016, with the ACC publicly reprimanding him following the second incident. The game officials did not call fouls on either play. Allen was also called for a flagrant foul for hip-checking North Carolina’s Garrison Brooks during an ACC Tournament semifinal in 2018.

In December 2016, as a junior, Allen tripped an Elon player during a nonconference game at Greensboro Coliseum. He was issued a technical foul and the next day Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski suspended Allen, saying the incidents “do not meet the standards of Duke basketball.”