Kentucky guard Malik Monk found himself in some hot water on Saturday after cameras caught him laughing on the bench at the end of a blowout loss to Florida.
With his team down 19 points Saturday, Monk was spotted laughing about something on the bench, which was not a good look and inspired some modest criticism from Big Blue Nation. On Monday, Monk explained himself, offering an apology and saying he was caught off-guard by the Florida fans singing “Happy Birthday” to him.
“It caught me off-guard, them doing that,” Monk said, via Curtis Burch of WLAP. “We played bad. Winning is on my mind from the jump. If anybody took that wrong, I’m sorry for that. It was clever from them, the fans, to just do that. It was funny to me, but I shouldn’t have laughed at that moment because I knew the camera was on me.
“I knew it was going to be something, because we at Kentucky, and [coach John Calipari] told me that before. The camera’s always on us. I knew it was going to blow up.”
Monk will ultimately be forgiven if he puts in more performances like this one. Some people will inevitably be upset about this, but he apologized, and it’s time to move on.
