Norfolk State head coach Robert Jones finally spoke about the incident at Illinois State where Jamarii Thomas was called a racial slur by fans midway into the second half of the team's 64-58 victory. His afternoon press conference came hours after Illinois State head coach Ryan Pedon put out a statement saying that he reached out to Jones to apologize for his behavior in that moment.

According to Jones, Pedon called but he didn't answer the phone.

“I didn’t answer because, for me, you had four opportunities to make it right in person. So let’s not make it right now when 6 million people have seen the video, now as you get all types of flack from the media and the public and things like that,” Jones said at the presser.

Jones was expecting Pedon to address and apologize for the racial slurs directed at Jones, which was noticeably absent in his apology.

“At no point, even through the statement that he made yesterday, there was no apology about anything with the racial slurs. So I can’t respect that and I probably will never talk to him, to be honest with you.”

According to Jones, this isn't the first time that this has happened to a Norfolk State player. Spartan-turned-NBA player Kyle O'Quinn had racial slurs directed at him in a game in the 2011-2012 season. Jones was an assistant on the team at the time, becoming the head coach of the program in the 2013-2014 season. Jones even received text messages from O'Quinn as well as fellow former players Rodney McCauley and Jamel Fuentes following the Illinois State incident that reminded him of what occurred over a decade ago.

“I was talking to Coach Larry Vickers about this earlier: I forgot that when Kyle O’Quinn was sitting on the bench, they were calling him the N-word when he was sitting on the bench. So this is 11 years later that some stuff is still happening, which shouldn’t be happening…Getting that reminder really put a damper a little bit on the win because I’m like I shouldn’t have played this game.”

Jones also expressed that he doesn't believe that this is indicative of the Illnois State fanbase as a collective.

“No matter what happens as far as the way we think that times have changed, there’s still a pocket of people that haven’t changed. I do think that the majority of people have changed, I do feel that in my heart. It’s an unfortunate situation and I don’t think that the whole Illinois State fan base is like that, by any means. After the game, there was a lot of people very complimentary of our team.”

Norfolk State will play a road game against Stony Brook on Wednesday at 6:30 PM EST. The game will be broadcast on FloHoops.