University of Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne on Monday called for an end to field and court-storming, days after such an incident injured Duke basketball player Kyle Filipowski after his team was upset on the road by Wake Forest.
As reported by AL.com, Byrne, who has long been an advocate for stiffer penalties, said he’d like to see the home team forfeit the just-played game if its fans storm the playing field.
"When you have a sustained rush like what just happened the other day at Wake, you lose the game,” Byrne said, before appearing at the Birmingham Tip Off Club. “That will get people to stop.”
Eleven conferences — the Atlantic 10, Big East, Big South, Big Ten, Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-Eastern Athletic, Pac-12, WAC, Southeastern and West Coast -- recently told ESPN that the home school site of a court-storming could be subject to a fine under certain circumstances. Some have precise penalties, while others have general language regarding disciplinary measures and their applicability, William Weinbaum reported.
The ACC, of which Wake Forest and Duke are members, does not have a fine structure or disciplinary measures for when fans rush the court, according to information provided to ESPN.
Byrne said he didn’t think fines work to prevent fans from rushing after wins. Alabama has never been fined by the SEC , but on seven occasions opposing schools have been fined for storming the field of play upon defeating the Crimson Tide. The SEC changed its fine structure in 2023 to make a first offense $100,000, a second $250,000 and subsequent violations $500,000 each. The fines are now paid directly to the visiting school, AL.com reported.
According to AL.com's Matt Stahl, Byrne had previously advocated for taking away the next home game in the series from the team whose fans had rushed. After the Wake Forest incident, he decided to call for even more severe penalties.
On Monday, Duke head coach Jon Scheyer, Kansas head coach Bill Self and other college basketball leaders called for a ban on court-storming in college basketball due to safety concerns and potential legal impacts for athletes and students. During an ACC media call, Scheyer said the conference should implement a court-storming ban now and not wait to address the issue this offseason, ESPN reported.
Dan Patrick, on his radio show Monday, remained skeptical, stating, "It's going to take a terrible accident and then we're going to stop it."
"It's an unfortunate situation what happened to the players and the people that are involved in the game, on both sides. I've just seen highlights of it, clips of it," said University of Pittsburgh head coach Jeff Capel, as reported by Sports Illustrated. "You'd hope, especially when you're playing certain teams, when you're playing Duke, when you're playing North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas — those schools like that -— you have to anticipate on your home court that if your team wins, there could possibly be a court storming."
A Duke assistant for seven years, Capel recalls plenty of court-stormings following wins over the Blue Devils, but they seemed more controlled than the one that caused an injury to Filipowski's knee on Saturday.
Related: Caitlin Clark Collision Illustrates Potential Risks of Court-Storming
"Normally, those places had security and people — they had a plan in effect to protect the players," Capel said. "I think that should be the thing. I'm not saying I'm against court storming totally, but when you have situations that just happened against Wake Forest and you saw the situation that happened earlier in the year with [Iowa women's basketball star] Caitlin Clark, it makes me lean towards that if you can't have it under control. "
