Hey look, everyone. We’re hand-wringing again!
Those mean coaches and players, fresh off a high-intensity game where their very financial livelihood is dependent, are bullying the poor, misunderstood clowns from the stands just trying to post their latest TikTok and chase social cred, that’s all.
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Or as we like to say in these most wonderful United States, storming the (insert your playing surface).
Here’s what I call it: a world of no rules.
Not to mention reckless, dangerous and a false sense of security.
Yet with all of that, and even after another dolt from the stands shoved a phone in the face of Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg seconds after a loss to rival Iowa, and screamed at him; even after Hoiberg tried to knock the phone from said dolt, missed and his swing connected with an Iowa staffer in the handshake line, we refuse to end this nonsense with clear and unambiguous rules.
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If you storm the court (or field) before players and officials have exited, you’ll be arrested and lose ticket privileges forever. Period.
Instead, university presidents have decided to fine each other. The ACC fined North Carolina $50,000 earlier this month when its fans stormed the court after beating rival Duke, and the Big Ten will no doubt fine Iowa for its latest breach of rules.
The same North Carolina that is currently fueling its football NIL to the tune of $20 million. That 50K might be a bridge too far, baby.
But as the NCAA (also, collection of university presidents) has shown decade after decade, having rules and enforcing them are two distinctly different things.
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This isn’t a matter of want, it’s a mater of will.
Know why the NFL doesn’t have problems with field storming? Because the most successful sport in the history of the planet doesn’t put up with it.
There’s a police presence, and there are rules. There’s no gray area about what happens when you enter the field of play at an NFL stadium.
You’ll spend the next few hours in the local lockup, for starters. And just might get a shoulder pad to the solar plexus by one of 100-plus players on the field before the cops toss you in the back of a wagon.
College sports has decided to fine the universities, not the actual perpetrators. College sports has decided to fine each other, and move more fungible money between schools within the conference, instead of targeting the offenders.
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I’m shocked, absolutely shocked, something much worse hasn’t happened on one of the many court and field stormings. Because the law of averages says it will, and when it does, college sports will do what it does best.
Feign disbelief, and reactively make sweeping changes at the horror of it all.
Here’s a novel idea: Try proactive steps to eliminate the problem. Not a dopey fine, or an announcement over the PA system.
This isn’t about the “tradition” of storming the field, or running on the court at a buzzer-beater. This is a few hundred students on the field with phones lifted high, recording for prosperity.
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Or Instagram. Whichever comes first.
This isn’t about eliminating what makes college sports special, or the purity of college sports over homogenized professional sports. No one is taking away your precious look-at-me moment.
Just making you wait three minutes so players and officials can exit the joint. Hell, we’ll throw a countdown clock with a horn into the equation, so everyone can run on the field or floor and get stupid at the same time.
TikTok to your heart’s content, everybody.
Or we can keep doing dumb, and the next incident won’t be so simple and eventually forgettable.
The next incident might be much closer to what happened three years ago, when Alabama wideout Jermaine Burton took a swing at a coed who ran by and yelled something at him after Tennessee beat the Tide in overtime.
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Some player or coach somewhere will directly connect at some point, and when the clown holding the phone hits the deck and is seriously injured, we’ll scream and yell about it for weeks, post about it on social media and demand change.
When we knew the answer all along.
There are rules, and there are consequences for those who don’t follow rules. Despite what you may have heard, that’s not a foreign concept.
Coaches ask players to compete like a pack of wild dogs on the court and field, expending every ounce of energy like you’re livelihood depended on it. Because now, in the new era of NIL, it does.
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But don’t mind clowns with their phones, picking at the fresh wound during your lowest moment of the week or year.
They’re just kids, and it’s tradition.
There are no rules.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College basketball court stormings don’t need to stop, just wait a minute
