BREAKING NEWS: What Jeff Walz said about Louisville been hit with $20,000 fine for Jeff Walz comments

The ACC announced on Tuesday that Jeff Walz would get a public reprimand and the University of Louisville would receive a $20,000 punishment for comments Walz made criticizing officiating during the U of L’s 73-72 loss to Syracuse on Sunday.

The ACC office issued an official release on Tuesday afternoon, which is as follows:

“The Atlantic Coast Conference issued a public reprimand to Louisville women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz for violating the ACC Sportsmanship Policy following the game against Syracuse on February 11.” In addition, the league said that Louisville has received an institutional fine of $20,000 for the infringement. The levied institutional fine will be deposited into the Weaver-James-Corrigan-Swofford Postgraduate Scholarship account.

Walz’s postgame statements about the referees were a flagrant violation of the ACC Sportsmanship Policy, which specifies that “public criticism of officials or public comments evaluating the officiating of specific contests is not in the best interests of intercollegiate athletics.” Individuals affiliated with the athletics program are consequently barred from commenting on officiating while operating in an official capacity, except directly to the Conference office.”
Walz criticized a deliberate foul call against Louisville’s Olivia Cochran, which allowed Syracuse to sink the game-winning free throws with only 2.7 seconds remaining. The Cardinals’ loss prevented them from tying Virginia Tech for first place in the ACC standings.

“It was a God-awful call,” Walz explained. “The officiating was horrible. They should feel humiliated. But you know what? I’ll receive my fine. I am confident I will receive a letter of reprimand. But at this point, someone needs to start holding officials accountable. That was the worst call I’ve witnessed in my 29 years of coaching. If we start calling it that, every foul at the end of a game that a team must commit is intentional. Every foul is. We all know what it is. But calling it in a one-point game with 2.5 seconds left is just horrible. It’s horrible. It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing for our league. But we’ll never hear about it since it’s such a hallowed society that we can’t ever publicly criticize an official, God forbid. However, we will penalize coaches and call out players. But there are three individuals out there, and God forbid we come out and say a league made a statement that it was a blown call, a terrible call. “We will not do that.”