Duke Basketball: Should court-storming continue after Kyle Filipowski's injury?

Losing hurts. A lot.

That said, it shouldn’t hurt to the point where we’re blaming the wrong people for our own pain and frustration.

Immediately following the Duke Blue Devils’ four-point road loss at the hands of the Demon Deacons (of Wake Forest) in LJVM Coliseum, Wake Forest’s fan base stormed the court to celebrate their unlikely victory. Merely acting by their God-Given rights, the Demon Deacons’ faithful made the same statement that so many others have before them. Court-storming is a beautiful form of shared celebration that’s unique to college basketball and its tight-knit communities. Unfortunately, this long-standing tradition has fallen on hard times in recent months. Facing the threat of extinction as ESPN and other, overly sensitive mainstream media outlets continue to attack its place in our game, court-storming is fighting the good fight while lame conferences like the SEC are taking extreme measures to essentially outlaw it.

While I freely admit one, very bad court-stormer has the potential to ruin it for the rest of us, that line hasn’t been crossed yet. That’s right, we’re not at that point.

After the Iowa Hawkeyes’ star-guard, Caitlyn Clark, collided with an innocent, but (still) confused Buckeye-fan who was storming the court and unaware of her surroundings, the pundits went ballistic in their tirades against court-storming; even though it’s safe to say the contact was accidental and unintentional. In addition, the contact was minor and the athlete in Clark braced herself for the fall. If you’ve seen the right replays, it’s obvious that Clark is looking to her left as she’s jogging off the court in the seconds before the collision occurred. In other words, Clark wasn’t looking straight-ahead; and by the time she turns her head around it’s too late. Bottom-line? The media felt compelled to make something out of nothing (here).

Circling back to Duke’s loss against Wake Forest, the Blue Devils’ All-ACC center, Kyle Filipowski, became the center of attention when he made contact with one court-stormer before others made contact with him on their way to the middle of the floor. If you’ve seen the video, it’s clear Filipowski is briefly caught in the crossfire of the court-stormers before (his) coach Jon Scheyer and a couple of teammates help remove him from the floor. While initial reports suggest the 17-PPG Dukey might be hurt, I’d be very surprised if Filipowski is seriously injured, and by “seriously injured” I mean he ends up missing at least one game. After the (non-) incident, Scheyer teed off on court-storming in his post-game presser.

If athletes, their coaches, and the media are truly THIS concerned about court-storming, perhaps they should take action themselves; instead of placing the blame on stadium-security for failing to “have a plan” in terms of crowd-control. I don’t care how big the security guards are; if hundreds of people are determined to make their way onto the floor, they’re going to get on the floor. Having 24 security-guys, instead of 12; for example, who are (each) the size of Moses Malone isn’t going to make a shred of difference when the time comes; fans can and will storm the court. Simply, no plan; good, bad, or so-so; is going to stop hundreds if not thousands of determined court-stormers.

For some strange reason (haha), ESPN’s longtime college-basketball commentator-&-analyst, Jay Bilas, was up in arms this afternoon discussing court-storming and how it needs to be eliminated from our game. Although Bilas was calling a separate game today, he went on a rant about court-storming and how it’s bad for the game. How’s that for timing?

I’m sure Jay’s on-air speech & anger had nothing to do with his alma-mater’s involvement in the overarching, bogus story; or that his alma-mater lost. No, way. Jay’s too much of a professional to let personal grievances creep into his career (sike).

Cry me a river, Jay and Jon. Welcome to college-basketball.

If Jon really wanted his players to be protected from court-stormers, he should’ve informed them prior to the game (or during it) to leave the floor as quickly as possible once the buzzer sounds. Instead, one of Jon’s players (/Filipowski) innocently waved at a kid who was innocently storming the court; made innocent contact with that Demon-Deacon fan, and then Jon’s player innocently found himself on the ground because he didn’t get off the court fast enough.

All this crying over court-storming is really just sour grapes. Losing isn’t fun. And I get that losing isn’t fun.

(But) I would urge each and every one of you who stands against court-storming to think about what makes college-basketball great. I’d also encourage you to think about the true source of your anger and frustration.

Most of all, remind yourself (of the correct answer and how) it’s the fans.

Also, remember it’s only one loss. Your team will be back.

Let the underdogs celebrate. Don’t rain on their parade.