Wizards use a big opening quarter to never trail in 119-114 victory over 76ers

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Alex Sarr scored 24 points and had seven rebounds to lead the Washington Wizards to a 119-114 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night that snapped a five-game skid.

Justin Champagnie added 18 points while shooting 4 for 6 from 3-point range and had 10 rebounds for the Wizards, who won for the third time in their last 10 games.

Quentin Grimes scored 22 points for the 76ers, who dropped their sixth straight. Guerschon Yabusele added 21 points and eight rebounds.

Champagnie scored 16 points in the first half for the Wizards, who led 67-58 at halftime.

Washington went on an 11-0 run in the third quarter to extend its lead to 89-71 with 2:48 left in the period. Tristan Vukcevic scored a team-high 11 second-half points as the Wizards were outscored by four points over the final two quarters, but still held on to win.

Wizards: Sarr, the No. 2 overall pick in last year’s draft, has now scored at least 19 points in six of his last eight games.

76ers: One encouraging sign for Philadelphia was the continued production from Grimes, who has scored at least 22 points in nine straight games. His 22-point performance Wednesday was actually his lowest total since March 6, when he had six points in a 123-105 loss at Boston.

Champagnie, Sarr and Jordan Poole sank 3-pointers during a 10-0 run in the opening minutes that gave Washington a 10-2 lead it wouldn’t relinquish. The Wizards led 45-29 by the end of the first quarter. It was the most points allowed by the 76ers in the opening quarter this season.

The Wizards outscored the 76ers by 12 points on 3-pointers, making 18 compared to 14 for the 76ers. Nine of those for Washington came in the first quarter, the most for the Wizards in any quarter this season.

Wizards: Begin a five-game homestand Thursday against Indiana.

76ers: Host the Miami Heat on Saturday.

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

Washington Wizards' Jordan Poole, right, goes up for a shot against Philadelphia 76ers' Justin Edwards during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Will Smith reacts to the crowd before an NBA basketball game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Washington Wizards Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Washington Wizards' Bub Carrington, right, dunks past Philadelphia 76ers' Jeff Dowtin Jr. during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia 76ers' Ricky Council IV, center, goes up for a shot between Washington Wizards' Jaylen Martin, right, and Tristan Vukcevic during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Washington Wizards' Tristan Vukcevic dunks during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Washington Wizards' Colby Jones, top, goes up for a shot against Philadelphia 76ers' Guerschon Yabusele during the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Washington Wizards' Jaylen Martin, right, reacts after dunking the ball against Philadelphia 76ers' Justin Edwards during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Washington Wizards' Alex Sarr (20) goes up for a shot against Philadelphia 76ers' Jeff Dowtin Jr. (11) and Guerschon Yabusele (28) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Washington Wizards' Alex Sarr (20) goes up for a shot against Philadelphia 76ers' Adem Bona (30) and Ricky Council IV (14) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge challenging the outcome of his North Carolina Supreme Court race was photographed wearing Confederate military garb and posing before a Confederate battle flag when he was a member of a college fraternity that glorified the pre-Civil War South.

The emergence of the photographs comes at a delicate time for Jefferson Griffin, a Republican appellate judge who is seeking a spot on North Carolina's highest court. Griffin, 44, is facing mounting criticism – including from some Republicans – as he seeks to invalidate over 60,000 votes cast in last November’s election, a still undecided contest in which he is trailing the Democratic incumbent by over 700 votes.

The photographs, which were obtained by The Associated Press, are from when Griffin was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1999-2003 and a member of the Kappa Alpha Order, one of the oldest and largest fraternities in the U.S., with tens of thousands of alumni.

Griffin said he regretted donning the Confederate uniform, which was customary during the fraternity's annual “Old South” ball.

“I attended a college fraternity event that, in hindsight, was inappropriate and does not reflect the person I am today,” Griffin said in a statement. “At that time, like many college students, I did not fully grasp such participation’s broader historical and social implications. Since then, I have grown, learned, and dedicated myself to values that promote unity, inclusivity, and respect for all people.”

One of the pictures, taken during the 2001 ball, shows Griffin and roughly two-dozen other fraternity members clad in Confederate uniforms. Another photograph from the spring of 2000 shows Griffin and other Kappa Alpha brothers in front of a large Confederate flag. He served in 2002 as his chapter’s president.

Kappa Alpha has proven to be a lightning rod for controversy over the decades, often due to the racist or insensitive actions of some of its members. A number of politicians have been forced to apologize for having worn Confederate costumes at the fraternity's functions or for being photographed in front of a Confederate flag.

Griffin said Friday he voted in favor of a resolution prohibiting Kappa Alpha members from displaying the rebel battle flag at the group’s national convention in 2001. The fraternity didn’t ban the wearing of the Confederate uniforms until nearly a decade later, long after Griffin graduated.

“We believe in cultural humility, we respect the best parts of our organization’s history, and through education we challenge our members to work for a better future. These things are not mutually exclusive,” said Jesse Lyons, a spokesman for Kappa Alpha’s national office in Lexington, Virginia.

The fraternity claims Robert E. Lee as its “spiritual founder” and long championed the Southern “Lost Cause," a revisionist view of history that romanticizes the Confederacy and portrays the Civil War as a valiant struggle for “states’ rights” unrelated to the enslavement of Black people. In decades past, some Kappa Alpha chapters referred to themselves as a “klan,” a term that many viewed as an unsubtle wink to the Ku Klux Klan.

The photographs featuring Griffin were taken at a time when many other Kappa Alpha chapters were reevaluating their celebration of the Confederacy.

During Griffin’s time in the fraternity, some in his chapter questioned the appropriateness of dressing up in Confederate uniforms for the ball. Griffin opposed abandoning the tradition, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. The uniforms stayed.

Griffin said he would “not respond to unsubstantiated comments based on memories of 20-plus years past.”

In high school Griffin also expressed an affinity for Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general who led southern forces during the Civil War. In a 1998 feature on high school “scholars of the week” in The News & Observer of Raleigh newspaper, Griffin said Lee was his No. 1 choice to include on an “ideal guest list” for a party.

The Kappa Alpha Order was founded in 1865, not long after Lee surrendered to the Union Army, at a Virginia college where Lee served as president. At least one of the first members was a former rebel soldier who had served under Lee, who is revered by the fraternity as the ideal of gentlemanly Southern chivalry.

For more than a century, Kappa Alpha threw “Old South” parties. They were formal affairs where the Confederate battle flag was flown and fraternity brothers dressed in replica Confederate gray uniforms and their dates wore antebellum-style hoop skirts. Sometimes they would ride through campus on horseback.

Some Kappa Alpha chapters, particularly in the South, clung to their traditions, including the wearing of blackface, even as they drew protests and public sentiment shifted.

A Kappa Alpha “Old South” parade at Alabama’s Auburn University in 1992 drew supporters waving Confederate battle flags, as well as counter protesters who burned them. In 1995, a group of Kappa Alpha members at the University of Memphis hurled racial slurs while beating a Black student who caused a disturbance outside a frat party, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported at the time.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was no exception to the turmoil. Under pressure from student groups, the school's Kappa Alpha chapter in 1985 canceled its annual “Sharecropper’s Ball," which some attended in blackface. Fraternity members said blackface was worn because the event needed both Black and white attendees, but promised to discontinue the practice, according to a news story in the Daily Tar Heel student newspaper.

The Kappa Alpha chapter at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University stopped allowing members to wear Confederate uniform and display the Confederate flag in 1987.

But other chapters held on longer. It wasn't until Kappa Alpha members at the University of Alabama wore Confederate uniforms during a parade that paused in front of a Black sorority, which elicited intense blowback, that the national headquarters forbade them. It’s unclear if the chapter at UNC banned the uniforms before the national organization did.

Griffin is not the first public official to draw unwanted attention for their college-age embrace of symbols drawn from the darker chapters of the South's past.

Virginia's then-governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, came under intense criticism in 2019 over a racist photo that appeared on his yearbook page of his medical school. The incident led reporters to scour the college histories of other Southern leaders, forcing a number of politicians to publicly address their time as Kappa Alpha brothers.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, then the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, dodged questions in 2019 about photos showing him wearing a Confederate uniform while he was a Kappa Alpha member at Millsaps College in the early 1990s. While Reeves was enrolled there in October 1994, other members of the fraternity were disciplined for wearing afro wigs and Confederate battle flags and shouting racial slurs at Black students, the AP reported at the time.

Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declined to comment after yearbooks listed him as the leader of the fraternity's chapter at the University of South Carolina in 1969, along with photos of members wearing Confederate uniforms and posing with a rebel flag.

And Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, also a Republican, expressed regret for participating in “Old South” parties as a student at Auburn University in the 1970s.

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

FILE - Judge Jefferson Griffin, the Republican candidate for the N.C. Supreme Court listens to testimony in Wake County Superior Court on Friday, February 7, 2025 in Raleigh, N.C. (Robert Willett/The News & Observer via AP, File)