College basketball still trying to cope with court storms

[Street Knowledge]

College sports still grappling with how to stop court storms

The question as storms in football and basketball continue: How to let fans celebrate and keep everyone safe?

www.espn.com

When the Auburn men's basketball team visits Vanderbilt tonight, the matchup will pit the nation's top-ranked team against the most-penalized team for field and court storming this school year.

In just the past four months, the Southeastern Conference has levied $850,000 in fines against Vanderbilt. The penalties are part of a combined $2.6 million in fines the SEC has levied against nine of its 16 member schools because fans stormed in celebration after football and men's basketball victories before visiting teams had left the field or court.

The Vanderbilt tab is for three cases -- $100,000 for a football field storm in October and $750,000 for two men's basketball court storms in January -- prompting the school to adopt a new policy that allows postgame celebrations on the court but only after a one-minute delay at the end of a game.

"If we're fortunate enough to win, we need a new way to celebrate," first-year head men's basketball coach Mark Byington said in a video announcement sent to students Friday.

The school says the new approach for men's and women's basketball games would let fans enjoy a big win while giving players, coaches and officials time to safely leave the court. It also could reduce the chance of additional SEC fines -- money that within conference play goes to the opposing school.

Vanderbilt's new policy took effect before the men's team defeated unranked Texason Saturday, and fans did not storm the court. It could be put to the test tonight (7 p.m. ET, SEC Network) as Auburn (21-2, 9-1 SEC), No. 1 in the AP Top 25 and No. 2 in the Coaches Poll, visits the unranked Commodores (17-6, 5-5 SEC), who have won four straight games at home. Fans stormed the Memorial Gymnasium court after a men's basketball win against Tennessee on Jan. 18 and again Jan. 25 after their team defeated Kentucky -- the first time Vanderbilt has beaten Tennessee and Kentucky in the same season when both were ranked in the top 10.

 

[Street Knowledge]

It has been a special year for the Nashville school's teams -- its first winning football season and bowl victory since 2013, a 12-1 home record in men's basketball and first top-25 ranking in a decade, and a women's basketball team that cracked the AP Top 25 in late January for its first ranking in more than a decade before dropping out this week. ESPN requested interviews with Vanderbilt's football and men's basketball coaches, facilities officials, athletic director and chancellor before the school's unveiling of its new plan. The university declined the requests.

Aiden Rutman, a senior and sports editor of the Vanderbilt Hustler school newspaper, told ESPN that the change is effectively the university "legalizing court storming."

"I feel like it's very creatively smart for them to have found a way to let people storm the court and go celebrate without actually getting in trouble with the SEC and having to pay that fine," Rutman said. He said that the response to the new rule in his social circles and online platforms was positive and that he expects the promise of approved access after a minute should be enough to keep fans off the court for that long.

"If students aren't willing to wait that minute, then they're not real fans of the program," Rutman said, "because I think that to cost the school $500,000 to storm the court immediately versus waiting that minute is a problem."

According to the SEC's "Access to Competition Area" policy under which the Commodores have been fined, "An institution may adopt a policy allowing spectators to access the competition area once all visiting team personnel and game officials have safely exited the field and thereby avoid application of these penalties."

Concerns about court storming peaked nationally last season after collisions with basketball stars Caitlin Clark of Iowa and Kyle Filipowski of Duke during celebratory postgame storms at Ohio State and Wake Forest. In the wake of those incidents, Duke men's coach Jon Scheyer, his five-time national champion predecessor Mike Krzyzewski, Wake's Steve Forbes and Bill Self of Kansas, among others, called for a national ban on storming and for zero tolerance policies.

ESPN contacted all 32 Division I basketball conferences last year, and 11 said that under their rules they could impose fines on member schools in certain cases of court or field storms. Since then, despite widespread discussions among athletic officials about what can be done to stop storms, no conference has announced significant new measures to try to curb them. The NCAA says that for regular-season games, the matter remains up to the conferences to manage -- which means rules and policies differ around the country.

 

[Born2BKing]

You have cameras, start charging them for trespassing.