North Carolina players and team managers released an apology on Tuesday after a video showing several players celebrating without masks after Saturday’s victory at Duke forced Monday’s game against Miami to be postponed.
Two hours before Monday’s men’s basketball game between Miami and North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the ACC announced that both teams had agreed to postpone the game. The decision came hours after The Daily Tar Heel, the North Carolina student newspaper, posted a Snapchat video showing UNC Day’Ron Sharpe and Armando Bacot highlights partying without masks, along with other young people who also wore no masks, Saturday after UNC’s 91-87 victory over Duke.
In an apology Tuesday, North Carolina players and executives said Bacot and Sharpe were not alone.
“On Saturday night, several players and executives, not just those shown in the video that was seen, gathered to celebrate our victory at Duke,” his statement said. “Our intention was to celebrate in private within our group. Unfortunately, we allowed several friends who are not part of the team to join the meeting. We were inside and we were not wearing masks, which were mistakes.
“We apologize for not adhering to University and athletic department guidelines and apologize to Coach Williams and his staff for not moving forward on Sunday when he first coached us with us. We worked too hard for eight months doing the right thing to make that kind of mistakes at this point in the season. We hope to be able to play again soon and we want to remind everyone to be safe so that this pandemic ends as soon as possible. “
In the short video released by The Daily Tar Heel, Sharpe and Bacot, who added 27 points in beating their main rivals on Saturday, are shown with several people in a room while the music plays in the background.
Although the league statement did not provide details, ACC safety and health protocols list multiple reasons for postponing a match, including the “inability to properly track contacts in accordance with requirements or recommendations. government “and the” inability to isolate new positive cases, or quarantine high-risk cases of contact of college students from the travel and home team. “
Roy Williams said in a statement that he was happy for his players and managers to apologize.
“I appreciate the players expressing their apologies,” Williams said in the statement. “They made a mistake. They’ve been fantastic for over eight months in the way they’ve dealt with the whole situation with the virus. But they realize they made a mistake, for which they’re paying a very high price.”
The school has not said how Saturday’s video could affect games beyond Monday’s game against Miami.