If you missed it the other day, Jay Bilas responded to the Duke/Wake Forest court storming incident by suggesting that you could perhaps detain all of the filthy animals that run onto a playing surface:

“If they wanted to stop it, they could stop it tomorrow. The administrators will tell you, that security experts tell them, that it’s not a good idea to stop the court storming, that that could cause more problems than it would solve. But you don’t have to stop the court storming. One time, all you have to do, is once they’re on the court, don’t let ’em off. Just say ‘you’re all detained,’ and give them all citations or arrest them if you want to. Then court stormings will stop the next day. There’s no accountability for this. The fans feel like it’s an entitlement and the universities like it, and the truth is we like it.” 

Okay, so a couple of things here that are somewhat paradoxical. First, if you watched the PCL buzzer beater video, they actually did a great job of keeping things in check, and keeping fans in the stands:

Mind you, not everybody tried to get onto the court, but look at the yellow-clad security staff lining the perimeter before the final sequence. On one side I count eight security people, then there’s a couple of black shirt/police looking-types also along the baseline. There was enough manpower to prevent a cascade of humanity from DESCENDING onto the floor, including this guy, who said “I’ll fuck you up motherfucker! (paraphrasing)” –

What’s funny/ironic about the Bilas line, is that if you were going to round up and detain court-storming fans like the despicable cattle that he thinks they are, wouldn’t you still need a lot of security guards to do the job? You’re gonna need enough bodies to pen in these lowly plebes and confine them all, or else they’re just gonna leave the court and push through some rent-a-cops and you end up maybe citing 15 people while the other 500 skate. And if you need a bunch of security to do what Bilas suggests, would they be better served setting a perimeter and preventing the hardwood invasion in the first place?

Something to think about!

Here are some other options Bilas was reportedly considering:

  • public execution for anyone caught court storming
  • loss of scholarship, expulsion from college
  • automatic win for the other team
  • booted from conference, forced to join Temple in the AAC
  • scarlet letter pinned to your shirt, so everyone knows you’re a court stormer
  • branding all court stormers with a cattle prod, to permanently identify them as law breakers

Jokes aside, court storming is a tradition unlike any other, and getting rid of it entirely is fugazi. What’s important is making sure everyone else gets OFF the floor first, so if anyone has any ideas on how to do that safely and responsibly, I’m all ears. I’m not a security expert, but I did get pepper sprayed at Mountaineer Field in 2003, then we went downtown and set a bunch of couches on fire. Let’s go Mountaineers! Let’s go drink some beers!