ASU coach Herb Sendek on rushing the court: ‘There is an element of risk that will always be there’
Feb 25, 2015, 5:28 PM | Updated: 6:48 pm
Storming the court is, really, part of being a college basketball fan.
It usually happens when an underdog home team upsets a heavily favored, usually highly-ranked road team.
Over in Tempe, Arizona State Sun Devil fans have rushed the court after each of their last two wins over the University of Arizona Wildcats.
In 2014, fans poured onto the floor twice — once a little early — to celebrate ASU’s 69-66 double-overtime win over the second-ranked Wildcats.
And earlier this month, they emptied out of the stands after the Devils knocked off sixth-ranked Arizona 81-78.
It happens all over the country, usually to little fanfare and with nary a mention. But ever since Kansas State fans rushed the court after beating No. 8 Kansas, and in the process bumped into players and coaches, the practice has been a main topic of discussion.
Should it happen? Does it need to happen? Must it be stopped?
“Fortunately, in all the cases that I’m aware of, nobody has gotten seriously hurt,” ASU coach Herb Sendek told Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Wednesday. “But obviously when you have that many people in tight quarters, excited and coming together and converging, there is an element of risk that will always be there no matter what your security is like.
“And I think we saw that come to the surface at the end of the K-State/Kansas game.”
Sendek noted that while for the most part nothing terrible comes from court storms, there have been instances all over the world where a large group of fans entering the field of play has led to tragedy.
Down in Tucson, the Wildcats have been on the wrong end of court storms after each of their three losses this season. It happened after three of their losses last year, too, with California and ASU fans each causing a delay because their games were not quite over yet. This week, Arizona coach Sean Miller said he was against the practice of storming the court.
“If you think about it, there’s only one thing that can happen — and that’s bad,” Miller said. “What’s the good, that they storm the court? I can name a lot of bad.”
He proposed penalizing a basketball program $100,000 for their fans rushing the court, believing that would prevent it from happening and thus guarantee everyone’s safety.
Sendek, though, isn’t ready to say rushing the court should be removed from the game entirely.
“I think it is a fun thing to do, it’s a joyous moment,” he said. “But that has to be balanced with the risk. I don’t know how you could have a court or a field storming without there being some risk. That would not be possible, so to the extent you want to have zero risk and you don’t want to be put in that situation, then you’ve got to probably stop it.
“Even in our game against Arizona, Sean very wisely had his players leave the bench area before we shook hands. He told me he did that on purpose and obviously we were fine with it. I know we had taken appropriate security measures here at Arizona State, but even with all that said, you have a large number of people rushing a confined area, something can happen. No doubt about it.”
