Two ACC officials sent home from NCAA tournament, no impact on ACC teams
Two basketball officials who worked the ACC tournament have been sent home from the NCAA tournament after they were part of a group that went to dinner in Indianapolis with an official who tested positive for COVID-19, but there are not expected to be any ramifications for ACC teams.
Six officials in total were ruled out of the tournament due to quarantine and contact-tracing, Stadium first reported Monday night, including the ACC’s Roger Ayers and Ted Valentine. The NCAA later confirmed the number of officials and the positive test, but not the names.
“It can’t be perfect and it’s not going to be perfect in a pandemic,” NCAA basketball executive Dan Gavitt said Tuesday. “This is a disappointing circumstance for all involved. It’s not something we’ve pinpointed as some kind of failure here. It’s just an unfortunate set of circumstances.”
Ayers worked the ACC semifinal between Florida State and North Carolina and Valentine worked the ACC championship between Georgia Tech and Florida State. Both have worked multiple Final Fours.
All three ACC teams should be able to continue their NCAA-mandated seven-day pre-tournament testing period because both officials tested negative throughout the ACC tournament and wore Kinexon tracking devices that would have flagged any contact-tracing issues already. An ACC spokesperson declined to comment because it is considered a medical issue.
Ayers went on to work the Atlantic 10 final between St. Bonaventure and Virginia Commonwealth on Sunday. It’s unclear whether the Atlantic 10 was using Kinexon or another tracing system. An A10 spokesperson declined to comment.
“The one positive referee did work a couple of conference tournament games over the weekend,” Gavitt said. “Local contact tracers as well as the Marion (Indiana) County health department reviewed the risk of exposure and it doesn’t appear to have any impact on teams which participated in those games.”
Gavitt said Tuesday that there were five positive tests among the 1,200 administered to teams and NCAA staff over the previous 24 hours but would not say whether that included any coaches, players or members of the so-called “Tier I” travel parties that have access to the basketball court.
The NCAA brought only 60 referees to Indianapolis instead of the usual 109 and they were supposed to remain within their hotels once they arrived except to work games, but the group of six went to dinner Sunday night when their rooms weren’t ready, Stadium reported. Then one of the officials tested positive Sunday night and retested positive Monday. At that point, all six were dismissed from the tournament.
Gavitt said four of its 17 stand-by officials would be added to the pool to replace the six officials lost.
This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 8:51 PM.
