Chapel Hill, NC – Tar heels are placed.
A men’s basketball game at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scheduled for Monday night against the University of Miami has been postponed, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced just hours before the scheduled departure.
UNC Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham said: “We are disappointed that tonight’s game against Miami has been postponed and we hope that every effort will be made to reschedule the game.”
The Daily Tar Heel released a video that allegedly shows UNC players Armando Bacot and Day’ron Sharpe, partying without masks on Saturday after their victory against Duke University.
A UNC athletics spokesman confirmed that the video was part of the reason the game was postponed.
“I contacted UNC and ACC, and neither is officially saying it was [canceled because of the video], but according to one of my sources, when you see Day’ron Sharpe and Armando Bacot, two of the best players in North Carolina, not following the protocol … this leads you to question contact tracking and other potential risks , not just for the North Carolina team, but also for Miami, “said Joe Giglio, a sports expert at WRALSportsFan.
“It’s definitely something to disapprove of, but I would say that almost all of my friends have partied without a mask this year at one time or another,” said freshman Ira Wilder. “I didn’t see many people in the video, so it may have been a little out of proportion. [I’m] disappointed that the game was canceled. We were all looking forward to watching. ”
Some students at UNC-Chapel Hill said other students are not taking the pandemic as seriously as they should.
“It shows that it is okay to go out without masks,” Anyelin Lopez said of the video. “They are not taking it seriously. It needs to be applied.”
Lopez, who is a waitress at the Que Chula restaurant in Chapel Hill, said what she saw over the weekend was scary – not just for her health, but also for her job.
“This is your livelihood, so you can’t close it again,” she added. “We cannot close again. It would ruin many people’s wages. There are few people who can work in restaurants.”
“We are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel and we really need to protect ourselves and be especially cautious about what we do to end this pandemic,” said Wilder.
Chapel Hill leaders, including Mayor Pam Hemminger, will meet with the UNC-Chapel Hill leadership on Wednesday to discuss stronger measures to prevent breaches of COVID-19.