The past couple months have put a spotlight on court storming in the college world, especially with this weekend’s fiasco at Wake Forest. We’ve seen players like Caitlyn Clark of Iowa and Kyle Filipowski of Duke be involved in altercations on the court due to storming that has put player and fan safety at risk. It’s divided people across the nation, with plenty of people petitioning to eliminate it entirely. Media members like Jay Bilas of ESPN have even gone as far as proposing the idea that fans should be detained on the court to stop future court storming events. Some have offered the solution of taking away a home game for the team the following year. This has caused such a ruckus in not just college basketball, but the college sports community for years. But what can actually be done to stop future problems?
To start off, I think banning it would lead to more issues than anything else. Telling college students that they can’t do something only makes them want to do it more. Instead of making it safer, it would probably make it more of a mess than it already is, so it does not seem like a viable solution. Banning it also ruins a part of the game. Court storms allow players and fans to create a once in a lifetime experience and have been around for decades. As Keyshawn Johnson said on Undisputed Monday morning, court storming is a part of the fabric of college sports, for both football and basketball. Taking it away just seems like a soft move as there are ways to fix it to ensure it is safely done.
What I’ve seen online that I tend to agree with is giving players a 30 second shot clock to get off the court and get into the locker room. It allows players plenty of time to avoid the masses rushing onto the court and still allows the home team the ability to have a moment with their fans. Getting fans to abide by those rules is not going to be the easiest task in the world, but the NCAA has already let this situation get out of hand. If fans can’t comply with the 30 second countdown to allow players to get to safety, that’s when the heftier punishments should be enforced.
With all this being said, this is not a responsibility that should fall onto the visiting players and coaches to get off the court as fast as possible. That’s just how it’s been for years because the NCAA, as much as they might not want to seem it, enjoy court storms as they bring national recognition. Because of this, the problem has gotten worse and has caused the injuries of fans and players.
As for the schools themselves, I think Stephen A. Smith brought up a good point about how schools don’t want to spend the money on security to protect the visiting players. The NCAA can play their role by requiring a certain level of security to protect the visitors in situations where they are expecting a court storm. If a school doesn’t comply, they get fined, simple as that.
There are countless instances of where court storms have been unproblematic, but it falls on the NCAA and the schools to protect their players. Take for example Creighton this past week. In their win over UConn, security was able to get the Huskies off the court safely and basically roped off half of the court to protect them while their team celebrated the win. No one got hurt because they had plenty of security and a good plan of action.
While this issue will be debated on for the weeks to come, it’ll be interesting to see what the NCAA decides on as their course of action. It’s getting to the point where they need to respond with something, but the NCAA doesn’t have the best track record with doing that. (They should also get new AP Poll voters while they’re at it. How is Purdue ahead of UConn??)
So no, don’t get rid of court storms. Be better at protecting the players who bring in your revenue so that players and fans can enjoy the game the way it’s been for years.