If you follow Duke basketball, you follow injuries. Zion Williamson blows out a knee making a cut. A Butler player steps on Kyrie Irving’s foot. Carlos Boozer. Ryan Kelly. Dariq Whitehead. Bobby Hurley. So many more.
It’s an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of having 10 large, fast human beings running and jumping and bumping into each other in a tight space.
What happened at Wake Forest Saturday afternoon was not inevitable.
Before I get to that, the latest on Kyle Filipowski.
Day-to-day, lower-body injury.
Too soon? Jon Scheyer did say at Monday’s ACC ZOOM that Filipowski’s injury was a knee injury. He also said that he didn’t know if Filipowski would practice today, which suggests that he might, which suggests this may not be a long-term thing.
Ditto Caleb Foster, bothered by an ankle injury unrelated to Saturday’s post-game activities.
Keep in mind that with Jaden Schutt and Christian Reeves red-shirting, Duke is down to 10 recruited players, not an ideal circumstance to absorb injuries, especially one to Filipowski, who leads the team in points, rebounds and blocks.
Scheyer did say that freshmen Sean Stewart and T.J. Power--both 6-9--were working hard in practice and were ready to answer the call, should it be needed.
Next man up? Sure. But neither Stewart nor Power is projected to be an NBA lottery pick next June.
Back to Saturday. Actions have consequences. We’ve all heard that, probably used it a few times, maybe had it used against us.
Will there be consequences?
Lots of discussions ongoing. Duke AD Nina King seems to have taken the lead for Duke, as she should.
Speaking of AD’s, here’s part of what Wake AD John Currie said.
“Although our event management staff and security had rehearsed post-game procedures to protect the visiting team and officials, we clearly must do better.”
I don’t know if he ran this by legal but this seems like an admission of culpability to my non-lawyer eyes.
Look at the footage of the post-game again, if you have the stomach. One part celebration, sure. But one part soccer riot. Some of the fans aren’t rushing towards the center of the court, they’re rushing across the court to the Duke bench, some with phones out, the better to record and distribute the moment when they “owned” Duke.
The Ohio State fan who body blocked Caitlin Clark a few weeks ago had her phone out.
Running in a crowd while looking at your phone?
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Much of the focus has been on Filipowski, as it should be because he was injured.
But Scheyer mentioned others
“There’s a ton of attention on Flip. But if you back and watch Jared McCain, there’s a student face-to-face with him. It’s a dangerous situation. Mark [Mitchell], the same thing. The heroes of that whole thing were our student managers, running on the floor to protect our guys. That’s an amazing thing.”
My best guess is that the student managers didn’t sign up for hand-to-hand combat.
“It comes back to the well-being of our guys,” Scheyer summed up. “It would be wrong of me not to speak up. It would be wrong of me not to speak up for all the student-athletes who could be put in this position. Something needs to change now before something serious happens.
“Go back and look at Jared McCain and the position he was in when the game ended and the kid could have punched him in the face, he could have punched the kid for his own safety. When you get a student, a fan that close to you, face-to-face, two seconds after the game ends, we’ll regret that if we don’t do something to keep that from happening in the future.”
Scheyer also pushed back against the idea that he should have taken his starters off the floor, noting correctly that the health of his reserves should be as well protected as the health of his starters.
Scheyer added that something needs to be done right now and there should be penalties.
“At the end of the day players and coaches and officials are the only people who belong on the court.”
That seems like a core-level, basic principle, one that shouldn’t even need to be said. But apparently does.
What should happen to Wake? Should anything be done to Wake? What can be done to stop this from happening again? Can anything be done? Should anything be done?
A hefty fine? How hefty?
If I run a red light and I’m fined $25, that’s not going to stop me from running the next one.
Fine me $1,000, triple my insurance, get a letter from DMV telling me I’m losing my license if it happens again, we’re having a different conversation.
European football teams (American soccer) play games in empty stadiums when fan behavior gets out of hand.
Too harsh for college basketball? Will it be too harsh when someone is trampled to death in the melee?
Over-dramatic?
On December 3, 1979 The Who were scheduled to play a concert at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. Festival seating was the order of the day, at least for some of the tickets. The crowd broke through doors in a rush to find the best seats and 11 people were trampled to death.
They weren’t shot, knifed, didn’t die in a fire or drown, didn’t die of an overdose. They were crushed to death in a coliseum in a major American city in a mad and uncontrolled rush, 11 deaths that didn’t have to happen.
Need a sports analog? Use your search engine of choice to look for “soccer riots lead to fatalities” or some such.
Maybe I am being over-dramatic, But watch that film again and tell me there’s a non-zero chance of someone being trampled in that rush.
Better be safe than sorry became a thing for a reason.
I know there’s a narrative out there that this is all good clean fun. And besides, nothing can be done to stop it anyway, old man shaking his fist at the sky.
I accept neither narrative. Charging across a crowded court to get into the face and maybe even shove a player of an opposing team isn’t good clean fun. Sure it was a tiny minority of Wake students and I certainly don’t want to tar the majority with the brush used to tar the dangerous few.
But perhaps the context makes everyone dangerous. Or makes everyone a potential victim. Storms aren’t normally viewed as a good thing. I’ve been in student sections following big wins. I stood in the student section at Duke for four years and nothing happened that even resembled what happened Saturday.
Of course, we didn’t have smart phones to immortalize every instance of our stupidity.
Was there a P.A. announcement Saturday along the lines of “please stay in your seats until the officials and players of both teams have had a chance to clear the court and reach their locker rooms?” Would waiting thirty seconds or so have significantly lessened the endorphin rush of storming the court?
At the very least protect the visitors' bench and their corridor to their locker room. And that of the officials. Again, no “fan” should ever be allowed on the floor in the vicinity of an opposing player or coach or official. Every game, every site, every time.
Let the visiting team bring their own security team and make the home team pay for it if that’s what it takes. But wall off the visiting team, at the very minimum.
And find a way to keep fans in their seats. Where they belong.
Before somebody gets killed.
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On paper maybe it should have been. In real life no official is going to call that, at least without a clear warning that such conduct would result in a technical. I have heard announcements at Cameron to that effect concerning bottle throwing on the court and so forth. But it's never going as far as a technical on the crowd. Maybe because fans heeded the warnings.
Students plus alcohol sales equals stupid behavior...