North Carolina players and team managers released a statement of apology on Tuesday after a video showing several players partying without masks after Saturday’s victory over Duke forced the postponement of 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, a North Carolina student newspaper, posted a Snapchat video showing the highlights of UNC Day’Ron Sharpe and Armando Bacot partying without masks, along with other young people who were also not wearing masks, the Saturday after UNC’s 91-87 victory over Duke.
In Tuesday’s apology, North Carolina players and coaches said Bacot and Sharpe were not alone.
“On Saturday night, several players and coaches – not just those shown in the video that was seen – came together to celebrate our victory at Duke,” the statement said. “Our intention was to celebrate privately within our group. Unfortunately, we allowed several friends who are not members of the team to join the meeting. We were inside and without masks, which was a mistake.
“We apologize for not following the guidelines of the University and the athletics department and we apologize to Coach Williams and his team for not taking a step forward when he first spoke to us on Sunday. We worked hard for eight months doing things right to make them 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 stay safe so that this pandemic will end as soon as possible. “
In the brief video published by The Daily Tar Heel, Sharpe and Bacot, who scored 27 points in the victory over their main rivals on Saturday, are shown having fun with several people in a room while a song plays in the background.
Although the league statement does not provide details, the ACC health and safety protocols list several reasons for postponing a game, which include “failure to perform proper contact tracking consistent with government requirements or recommendations” and “failure to isolate new positive cases, or to quarantine high-risk cases of traveling university students and home staff. “
Roy Williams said in a statement that he was happy that his players and coaches had apologized.
“I thank the players for expressing their apologies,” Williams said in the statement. “They made a mistake. They were fantastic for more than eight months in the way they handled the whole situation with the virus. But they realize that they made a mistake, for which they are paying a very significant price.”
The school did not say how Saturday’s video could impact games beyond Monday’s clash with Miami.