What can/should be done about court storming?

T

tom 48

Well-known member
Players are being targeted and injured. Should serious measures be taken to prevent potential serious harm?

The latest call for action came from Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball coach Jon Scheyer on Saturday afternoon, after a loss at the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Scheyer saw his best player and likely NBA draft lottery pick, big man Kyle Filipowski, suffer what the coach said was a sprained ankle during a scary-fast court storming by Demon Deacons fans. (Filipowski later reportedly said it was a knee injury.) This was a completely uncontained mob running heedlessly through the players immediately after the buzzer sounded.
Filipowski believes the Wake Forest fans intentionally collided with him, according to the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer. “I absolutely feel that it was personal—intentional, for sure,” Filipowski said. “There’s no reason where they see a big guy like me trying to work my way off the court and can’t just work around me. There’s no excuse for that.”
A few weeks ago, the biggest star in college basketball, the Iowa Hawkeyes’ Caitlin Clark, had a near-full-speed collision with an oblivious fan rushing onto the court at the Ohio State Buckeyes. Clark was uninjured, but it easily could have been much worse.

www.si.com

After Kyle Filipowski Injured in Court Storming, It’s Time to Take Action - Sports Illustrated

Half-hearted attempts to limit fans on the playing surface have not kept athletes, coaches and officials safe, so there must be stricter penalties before something more serious happens.
www.si.com www.si.com
 
 
Arrest and jail as many people as possible when it happens. That’s what would happen if it occurred during the game. Why should it be any different as soon as the clock hits zero?

Injuring any on-court personnel should leave the perpetrator liable for civil action, as well.

Court storming in a non-championship game makes no sense because it just proves that you believe your team/program to be inferior to your opponent.
 
AEW Champion said:
Arrest and jail as many people as possible when it happens. That’s what would happen if it occurred during the game. Why should it be any different as soon as the clock hits zero?
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Funny, in this instance there were fans on the court before the clock hit zero. Technical foul, free throws, and possession to Duke?
 
Dangerous and shouldn't happen. Fans do not belong on the court, but good luck having enough security in place to keep thousands of excited 18-22 year olds from court storming.

The doofus for Duke tried to forearm shiver some clown fan that sprinted by and turned to look at him...probably while saying something stupid and gesturing to the player. HE initiated the contact that resulted in him getting tripped up and bounced off of by 2-3 other fans. Spare me the Duke self-righteous indignation.

I'm not sure that this happens any more than it has in the past, but it's clear IMO that there are a lot more distractions in the ruckus now than in the past (i.e. idiot behavior with phones) that has made it far more dangerous.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Dangerous and shouldn't happen. Fans do not belong on the court, but good luck having enough security in place to keep thousands of excited 18-22 year olds from court storming.

The doofus for Duke tried to forearm shiver some clown fan that sprinted by and turned to look at him...probably while saying something stupid and gesturing to the player. HE initiated the contact that resulted in him getting tripped up and bounced off of by 2-3 other fans. Spare me the Duke self-righteous indignation.

I'm not sure that this happens any more than it has in the past, but it's clear IMO that there are a lot more distractions in the ruckus now than in the past (i.e. idiot behavior with phones) that has made it far more dangerous.
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Just to be clear, that idiot fan who rightly got pushed ran right through Filipowski’s knee milliseconds before Filipowski pushed him. Filipowski had every right to push that fool out of the way. It was obvious that was the fan who caused the knee injury.
 
Fans have been storming courts for decades without injury. College bball is already suffering in attendance - viewership (more people probably watched the court storming on you tube than the actual game) take more of the enjoyment out of the game. Just have the players sit or stand by their bench for 5 min. than walk off. People need to quit over reacting sensitive lot todays generation.
 
Stirred not Shaken said:
Fans have been storming courts for decades without injury. College bball is already suffering in attendance - viewership (more people probably watched the court storming on you tube than the actual game) take more of the enjoyment out of the game. Just have the players sit or stand by their bench for 5 min. than walk off. People need to quit over reacting sensitive lot todays generation.
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No one goes to the game because of a possible court-storming. Get serious.
 
AEW Champion said:
Weird comment. You sign up to play a game, not to get rushed and mobbed by hundreds or thousands of people who have zero concern for your well-being.
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Sign up? This isn’t Wednesday night men’s league. These guys are all being well compensated to play
 
Stirred not Shaken said:
Fans have been storming courts for decades without injury. College bball is already suffering in attendance - viewership (more people probably watched the court storming on you tube than the actual game) take more of the enjoyment out of the game. Just have the players sit or stand by their bench for 5 min. than walk off. People need to quit over reacting sensitive lot todays generation.
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Btw, college basketball is suffering in attendance because of:

1) A lack of roster continuity from year to year.
2) A lack of conference continuity and the destruction of once-fun rivalries like Maryland-UNC, Maryland-Duke, Syracuse vs all its Big East friends, etc.
3) The one-and-done rule.
4) The idea that nothing matters until the tournament … again, tied to the self-devaluation of conferences via disloyalty and membership shuffling.
 
AEW Champion said:
Just to be clear, that idiot fan who rightly got pushed ran right through Filipowski’s knee milliseconds before Filipowski pushed him. Filipowski had every right to push that fool out of the way. It was obvious that was the fan who caused the knee injury.
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Milliseconds is probably a good description, because it all looked pretty simultaneous to me. Dumb kid tripping over Filipowski's foot (and falling through his knee), while Kyle is chucking him.
 
Stirred not Shaken said:
Just have the players sit or stand by their bench for 5 min. than walk off. People need to quit over reacting sensitive lot todays generation.
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I feel like not all that long ago, there were more coaches that seemed to have an "awareness of the moment", and managed to get their players by the bench and out of the way.

In both player collisions over the last month, there's been a seeming stunning lack of awareness to get out of the way and off the floor. I know the game yesterday "wasn't over", but it was a two possession game with under 2 seconds left with Duke going the length of the floor. One of my first thoughts seeing the full video was "why is this player so far away from the bench as time is expiring?".
 
Actually I'd probably argue that a competent coach pulls all of his best players in this situation when the opposing coach calls timeout with 1.8 seconds left.

One would also think that Wake Forest would have done a better job of using the timeout time to ensure that site personnel/staff are in place to at least slow down the court storming a little.
 
Cedar_Point said:
Holy hell that’s the worse analogy I’ve ever read
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How so? Have security and the cops get in a line and aim their weapons at the student section as time is nearing expiration and see if any idiot students are still feeling froggy about ambushing the court.
 
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If you’re going to enforce this then strict laws need to be in place about trespassing on a court/field at anytime with the statutes listed on signs clearly visible by the average law abiding citizen. That becomes hazy because each person in that building bought their tickets and have a reason to be there already so they are not loitering or trespassing in the first place. The people are already inside the building on private property.

Want to make it easier? Then a wall needs to built surrounding each field/court to make to easier to enforce “first degree trespassing” which has to show “intent” to keep out intruders. Having a court or field easily accessible to the public shows no intent.

Good luck getting each university to pay for building such a wall and changing the layout of their home field/court to do so or agree with that mindset in the first place though.
 
Hire Chris Holtmann as your coach. Your fans will go many years with no reason to get excited enough to storm the court.
 
Bring back the cages!

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Not against letting kids have fun by storming the court, but the opposing team needs to be given adequate time to clear the court. As soon as the buzzer sounded, Wake Students were at half court.
 
When the game clock runs out start the shot clock. Those that cannot control themselves can storm the court when it expires.

In end-of-game situations when the outcome and a storming is assured, as mentioned above at about the 5-second mark the losing team needs to start heading to where the fans will not be. As they always tend to run to the center of the court, get away from there and over to the bench or scorer's table.

Stop promoting it, don't show the storming in the highlight clips of the game. Yes, it will appear on X in a shaky video but that's in the students' hands.

Maybe it will abate after a home team's player gets injured.
 
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This is a very fixable problem and for some reason schools do little to stop it. In Saturday's game with Duke and Wake Forest, BTW did you know Wake was favored in that game???
Anyway, Wake player makes two FT's with 1 second left to put them up FOUR. At this point the game is practically over. You KNOW a court storming is imminent. Get your bench players off the court and into the runway to the locker room. Have your assistant coaches at the ready to get players off the court ASAP after the horn sounds. Gather all event staff and form a tunnell to the locker room. The court storming generally is the students from the student section. Just delay them for 10-15 seconds, that's ALL it takes.
These administrations act like they are completely shocked that the court is stormed???
 
AEW Champion said:
Just to be clear, that idiot fan who rightly got pushed ran right through Filipowski’s knee milliseconds before Filipowski pushed him. Filipowski had every right to push that fool out of the way. It was obvious that was the fan who caused the knee injury.
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I don't have a problem with Filipowski protecting himself, but he did try to take a shot at a fan going by.
 
Let's look at this another way. Most of these schools practically BEG students to come to games - heck most schools charge an outrageous "activity fee" to the students to help fund the athletic departments, you don't think students are going to feel entitled a little???
So you're not going to arrest students and charge them. Most coaches and players after a big home win talks about the fans and the "home court". So it's going to happen and keep happening, heck schools happily pay the fee they get charged from the conference for court storming. It does nothing but adds to the conference's coffers. So you have to control it as much as possible.
 
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