NCAA Basketball: Can we please contain the court storming's?
When is the court storming tradition going to change in the world of NCAA basketball?
Court storming has been tradition in college basketball for many years. When an unranked team knocks off a highly ranked opponent on their home court or a rivalry drought is broken, the student section rushes the floor in order to celebrate with the home team.
Now it’s one thing for a mid-major school that hasn’t had success to rush the court, or for a mid-major conference championship game to result in a party on the hardwood (I’m not an advocator of no fun), but is it really necessary for name brand programs and ranked schools to have their fans on the court? And in the case of any court rushing (mid-major or major conference), shouldn’t there at least be proper protocols in place to make sure no one suffers an injury?
In Wednesday night’s UCLA versus Oregon Pac-12 showdown in Eugene, Dillon Brooks hit what the crowd thought was a buzzer beating three pointer to knock off the 2nd ranked team in the country. What happened shortly after could’ve easily resulted in a technical and a possible loss for a Ducks team that played an outstanding basketball game.
The shot. The call. The pandemonium. #GoDucks pic.twitter.com/yT5PyFvu1b
— GoDucks (@GoDucks) December 29, 2016
The problem with this is the game wasn’t over. The officials checked the monitor and came to the conclusion that there was 0.8 seconds remaining, with UCLA having a shot to win the game at the buzzer. It took the officials, coaches and players time to get the fans off the floor and back into their seats before they resumed play.
Now, this wasn’t a major court storming (they didn’t even fill a small portion of the floor), but why are Ducks fans even rushing in the first place?
Oregon is ranked 21st in the country and was the 4th best team in the nation at the beginning of the season. The only reason they dropped in the standings was because of injuries and role allocation issues. They’re still a contender to win the Pac-12 and could still make the Final Four in March. On top of that, the Ducks won the conference last season and earned a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Sure, they haven’t made the Final Four since 1939 and this was an exciting play on national television, but there comes a point when these storming’s must be tamed. On top of possibly costing a team a game, it’s dangerous for the players, coaches and officials if they cannot get off the floor in an orderly fashion.
Remember this:
And this:
Now Oregon’s wasn’t even close to this level and I don’t want to single out the Ducks because there are plenty of other storming’s that happen on a nightly basis, but if you watched the broadcast and remained tuned in following UCLA’s miss at the buzzer, a fan touched Ball to try to get his attention following the hand shake line.
That’s obviously unacceptable.
I’m not for completely abolishing court storming’s, but instead of talking about Brooks’ game winner and Oregon’s big victory, we could’ve been all discussing an embarrassing ending to what was an entertaining game. Let’s put in national protocols and regulations (and hope that ranked teams don’t make this a regular occurrence) before these incidents cost a team a game, and more importantly result in a player, fan or coach getting injured.
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