Pitt's Jeff Capel, ACC coaches look for court-storming controls before fans get even more physical

Just as terrifying for Duke coach Jon Scheyer as seeing his All-ACC center Kyle Filipowski hobble off the floor because of an injury inflicted by a fan from the opposing team was another scene Saturday that hasn’t received the same amount of attention.

Truth be told, it could have had a more unfortunate outcome than Filipowski’s knee injury.

“If you go back and watch (Duke freshman) Jared McCain,” Scheyer said Monday during the weekly ACC coaches’ conference call. “There is a student face-to-face with him. The kid could have punched him in the face. (McCain) could have punched the kid for his own safety.

“When you get a student or a fan that close to you, face-to-face, two seconds after the game ends, what a regret that is (for) college athletics, college basketball, if we don’t do something to prevent that from happening in the future.”

Scheyer said Duke’s Mark Mitchell (6-foot-9, 232 pounds) was in the same situation as McCain.

“Our student managers are running on the floor to protect our guys,” he said.

The throng of students and fans storming the court after Wake Forest’s victory against Duke — not an upset, by the way, because the Demon Deacons were the favorites — has restarted a debate on what to do to prevent unauthorized individuals from swarming the field of play at the end of a game.

“One second off the clock, they’re on the floor, three seconds they’re in (Filipowski’s) face right away. All of our people feel that can’t happen,” said Scheyer, who has called for a ban on court-storming.

“The ACC needs to do something. There has to be something done to protect our guys. Not just our guys, but any team.”

Related

• Duke's Scheyer wants the ACC to implement measures to prevent court-storming after Filipowski injury
• Oakland Zoo president can't envision fans ever storming the floor at the Pete
• SEC fines LSU $100K for fans storming court vs. No. 17 Kentucky

To Scheyer’s way of thinking, waiting until next season is too late.

“There should be penalties if students do it,” he said. “At the end of the day, players and coaches and officials are the only people who belong on the court. Something should be done now, like immediately.

“That was a failure, bottom line. It would be wrong of me not to speak up for all of the student-athletes that could be put in this position. Something needs to change now before something serious happens.”

Pitt coach Jeff Capel, who played and coached at Duke, is no stranger to court-swarming.

“I know when I worked at Duke,” Capel said, “every time we lost on the road — except at North Carolina and, I think, we lost once here at Pitt — there was a court-storming. Normally, those places had security and had a plan in effect to protect the players. I think that should be the thing.”

Members of Pitt’s fan group, the Oakland Zoo, have proudly proclaimed that their members never have and never will storm the court after a game.

“When you’re playing Duke, when you’re playing North Carolina, when you’re playing Kentucky, Kansas, those schools like that,” Capel said, “I think you have to anticipate, if you have them on your home court, that if your team wins, then there could possibly be a court-storming.

“I’m not saying I’m against court-storming totally. But when you have situations that just happened at Wake Forest, you saw the situation that happened earlier in the year with Caitlin Clark (Iowa women’s star who was knocked to the floor), it makes me lean towards that if you can’t have it under control.”

The same day as the collision with Clark, a fan in New Orleans put his hand on the back of Memphis’ David Jones when students stormed the court. Jones was uninjured, but Tulane apologized and condemned the incident.

ESPN.com reported that 11 conferences, including the Atlantic 10, Big East, Big Ten and Big 12, have rules in place where the home school could be subject to a fine under certain circumstances in the wake of a court-storming.

The ACC does not have a fine structure or disciplinary measures in place for court-storming, ESPN reported. But it does implement procedures to help officials and visiting teams safely leave the floor.

“Across college athletics, we have seen far too many of these incidents that put individuals at serious risk, and it will require the cooperation of all — including spectators — to ensure everyone’s well-being,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement after the Wake Forest incident. “As a conference, we will continually assess with our schools the best way to protect our student-athletes, coaches and fans.”

ESPN reported the SEC has imposed nearly $3.9 million in fines on its schools over the past 20 years for fans storming basketball courts or football fields. The conference imposed $2.6 million in football fines and nearly $1.3 million in basketball.

Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said it’s time “to have a real serious conversation” about court-storming.

“To stop this, schools have to be fined, let’s say $1 million, if anybody storms the floor before both teams have left the floor. There has to be a certain level of respect,” Hamilton said.

“Maybe fines are not the answer, but I believe if we all have a serious conversation, we can come up with something where we don’t have another incident like we had over the weekend.”

Said Boston College coach Earl Grant: “Maybe there should be fines. I think there’s some validity to that. The students and players of certain teams, they want to celebrate. I think we have to maybe plan better for it and have an exit plan for the opposing team so they can get out of there safely.”

Clemson’s Brad Brownell said he has nothing against players and fans celebrating together after a big victory.

“My concern is we’re going to have a situation where a player, in fear of safety, somebody’s going to push him or get up in his face and a player is going to do something to a fan, too,” he said.

Brownell, Virginia’s Tony Bennett and others across college athletics have suggested a brief period after the game when fans would wait until the officials and at least the losing team are escorted off the floor.

“You can storm the court, but we need 20 seconds to get the opponents off the floor,” Brownell said.

He added, however, “I don’t know how you hire enough people to keep students from rushing the floor. Maybe you can put enough (security) around the opposing team to protect them.”

Added Bennett: “We’ve been part of a lot of those where the court’s been stormed on us in years past. Sometimes, it gets a little dicey. Thankfully, no one’s gotten hurt. We’ve had people say stuff, bump a little bit.

“Sometimes, you can’t control everything. Maybe this will be the thing that puts something in place.”