Say what you want about Mike Krzyzewski. But, after the Duke Blue Devils lost to the Virginia Cavaliers last night and he watched thousands of UVA students rush onto the court to celebrate, he brought up a pretty good point: At some point, these court-stormings are going to end disastrously.
According to reports, Krzyzewski, his assistant coaches, and several of his players were involved in screaming matches with some of the fans who rushed the court. Krzyzewski also said that he had trouble working his way through the crowd and making it back to the locker room and questioned why schools don't do more to help losing teams avoid the rush.
"When we've lost in the last 20 years, everybody rushes the court," he said after the game. "Whatever you're doing, you need to get the team off first. Celebrate, have fun. Obviously you won. That's cool. But, just get our team off the court and our coaching staff before students come on."
He then pointed out what might happen if schools don't find a better way to police court-storming students.
"Look, do you know how close you are to—just put yourself in the position of one of our players or coaches," he said. "I'm not saying any fan did this, but the potential is there all the time for a fan to just go up to you and say, 'Coach, you're a…' or push you or hit you. And, what do you do? What if you did something? That would be the story. We deserve that type of protection."
Couldn't have said it better ourselves. We love seeing students rush the court after a big win (even though we feel like we've seen it way too often this season!). But, it's only a matter of time before someone out there ruins the fun for everyone by hitting a player or coach or causing some kind of serious injury. So, schools need to find a better way to allow fans to storm the court safely if they're going to keep the practice in play.
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[via Washington Post]
