The safety of players/coaches/students is understandably an issue when hundreds of people rush onto the court. Last year after Indiana’s win over No.1 Kentucky, Darius Miller got trampled as the students and IU players celebrated. This season, we saw C.J. Leslie help save a guy who had fallen out of his wheelchair after storming the court.
After Virginia’s 73-68 victory over No.3 Duke on Thursday night, according to Laura Keeley of the Raleigh News and Observer, Coach K voiced his displeasure with the safety of his players and coaches when the students rushed the court.
“Look, do you know how close you are to — just put yourself in the position of one of our players or coaches. 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 [expletive],’ 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.
“I’m always concerned about stuff like that, especially at this time of the year. What if that happened and we get a kid suspended? That becomes the national story. It’s not all fun and games when people are rushing the court, especially for the team that lost. Again, congratulations to them, and they should have fun and burn benches and do all that stuff. I’m all for that. They have a great school, great kids, but get us off the court. That’s the bottom line.”
From the video below of the court-storm, it does appear the the line of security does a good job of holding back the court-rushers from the Duke players and coaches.
One option for Coach K when facing future court storms, is to get his players off the court before the end of the game as Roy Williams did with his UNC players last season against FSU.
[Video: @CavalierInsider]