By Brendan Marks, Dana O’Neil and Nicole Auerbach
The floodgates burst before the final buzzer sounded.
Although, given the record crowd inside Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise. Nearly 15,000 Wake Forest fans had crammed into the building to watch their team take on No. 8 Duke — and, hopefully, to bear witness to a resume-affirming win, one that would solidify the Demon Deacons as an NCAA Tournament team. Imagine their excitement then, during the game’s final timeout with 1.8 seconds left, when they were on the precipice of an 83-79 home win.
That … and one cathartic, chaotic celebration.
When Duke’s subsequent inbounds pass was intercepted, it was all the signal students needed. Wake Forest fans immediately flooded the floor, sprinting to join the mosh pit forming at midcourt. One issue, though: Duke star Kyle Filipowski hadn’t gotten off the court before the celebration broke out — and multiple fans made contact with him while running at full speed. Filipowski appeared to get turned around, then injured, before a Duke manager reached him in the frenzy, forming a human barrier against the raging court storm. Soon other Duke staffers and players joined in, all protecting Filipowski as he limped off the floor.
GO DEEPER
Duke star Kyle Filipowski hurt as Wake Forest fans rush court
By the time Duke coach Jon Scheyer made it to his postgame press conference, he was fuming.
“When are we going to ban court-storming?” Scheyer asked. “Like, how many times does a player have to get into something, where they get punched or they get pushed or they get taunted right in their face? It’s a dangerous thing.”
In the wake of a second high-profile athlete-fan collision in about a month — Iowa star Caitlin Clark was knocked down on Jan. 21, after Ohio State upset Clark’s Hawkeyes — Scheyer’s question is being asked at every level of college athletics. Court storms have long been some of the most iconic visuals in college basketball, but they’ve increasingly come under fire for potential player safety concerns. “Who in their right mind,” Scheyer added, “can see that and say, yeah, that’s smart?” He isn’t alone in that sentiment. Which is why those in the basketball industry, from coaches to administrators to conference executives, now must answer the following:
Can a time-honored tradition be preserved with tweaks … or is it time to ban court storms once and for all?
“There’s a difference between trying to stop court-storming and trying to prevent injury,” Butler athletic director Barry Collier said. “I’d prefer we chase the latter of those two, and then I think we’d be in a better place.”
This is not the first time there’s been public — or private — backlash to court-storming. It’s been an ongoing discussion amongst college basketball’s shareholders for decades.
In 2004, the debate ignited after Arizona high schooler Joe Kay was accidentally trampled during a court storm; Kay suffered a stroke and torn carotid artery, which partially paralyzed his right side. In 2013, NC State’s C.J. Leslie had to lift a wheelchair-bound fan (who had fallen out of his chair during a court storm) away from the crowd to protect him. Then in 2015, Kansas State fans nearly trampled Kansas coach Bill Self after an upset home win over the Jayhawks. (In that same incident, a student threw an elbow at Kansas forward Jamari Taylor, and a KU assistant coach put another fan in a headlock.)
The court storming after Nebraska beats Purdue pic.twitter.com/wkxdX6Sex2
— Sam McKewon (@swmckewonOWH) January 10, 2024
After No. 1 Purdue lost at Nebraska on Jan. 9 — and endured a now-common court storm — Boilermakers coach Matt Painter sounded off. “Someone’s gonna get hurt,” Painter said, almost prophetically. “Could be a student. Could be one of (the opponent’s) guys. Could be one of our guys. Could be someone working the…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .