Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

There was one court storming during those couple of years when I was out of school but hanging around Tuscaloosa as a sad townie. Still had a brace on my leg after breaking my leg the prior fall, so I was the one guy the campus cops managed to stop from getting over the railing to celebrate beating Tubby Smith’s Kentucky. I don’t recall one since.

 

There really is no secret to preventing these things. If students are courtside - put a press table between them and the court.

 

And ensure the students cannot stand on the actual court level. They have to be elevated with a barrier.
I covered Duke at Georgetown in January of 2006. JJ Redick's Blue Devils were undefeated and the Hoyas won. I was seated behind a baseline. No real security in place. Students walked down to floor level. A couple of consecutive seats on the press row were vacated when the Hoyas had a seven-point lead in the final minutes. And that was the opening the crowd needed. When the levee broke, so to speak, the rest of us got out of there and there were no security people to stop them. The press tables were ultimately destroyed. It was a scary scene.
By the way, I watched the broadcast's end on YouTube. Verne Lundquist and Billy Packer on the call for CBS.

 

Clearly, you've never been on the court during a storming. They go right over them. Had my laptop stepped on ages ago during one.

 

This is some fine old man ranting. Could have read the same thing from the 90s, only replace "college kids" and "Gen Z" with "slackers" and "Generation X".

None of this is new. Wisconsin nearly had a Hillsborough on its hands in 1993 when it upset Michigan in football and there was a gate that wouldn't budge, causing a crush and some serious injuries.

Didn't Notre Dame fans storm the court when they beat UCLA way back in the 70s?

One of the most famous moments in American sports history is the Stanford band being on the field in 1982. Cal fans were on the field shortly afterwards.

Also, did you forget the court-storming debate began because Caitlin Clark got knocked down ... by Ohio State fans.

Someone is going to get hurt, though, and time has come to get serious about stopping it. The only way to truly prevent it is to have the home team forfeit if it happens. Fines won't do it. If I were a college student, paying stupid-level tuition, I'd be *proud* to get my school fined.

 

I'll give them a little latitude, since that win did break UCLA's 88-game winning streak.

 

Right. Point is court-storming is not new.

 

Three Final Fours! Only one of which officially counts. Keith Lee, bitches.

 

I will always and forever have a spot in my heart for Memphis No Longer State. Grew up on their games on Z-17 out of Nashville. U of M may have evolved into the closest thing a public PWI has become in terms of truly belonging to black and white alike, and in lifting up a lot of disadvantaged kids into middle class lives. And those early 70s teams unified a city ripped apart by King’s assassination.

But yes, they’ve always pushed the edges of the rulebook, except when they feed it in a paper shredder instead.

 

Trying to remember some of the details, and search engines fail me, but there was a case about 20 years ago when a kid from Tucson got caught in a court storming and was badly hurt. He had already declared to play volleyball for Stanford, which honored the scholarship even though he never played.

Was covering Central Section basketball finals a few moons ago, seated courtside (always liked to stake out a spot early and, besides, enjoyed the games), when a kid hit a shot at the buzzer to win it, ran over to the table and climbed on the lip of it to acknowledge the crowd. All I could think was "must protect company property" and put my arms and head over my laptop just to be safe. Luckily nothing happened.

 

Yeah...that will stop them. I was covering a mid-major conference championship where at the campus site of one of the teams. We got told by the SID with five minutes to play and the home team up 20 to watch out for the students jumping over our table.

 

Okay. If it takes someone getting killed, I guess that would make you happy.