Storming the Court

I remember the good old days when games ended and courts weren't stormed. I long for those days. It's disgusting that fans think they belong on the playing surface after the game. It's even more aggravating to me that the fans often don't wait for the game to end to act like hooligans.

The latest instance was in the Cal v. UCLA game today. When the Bruins knocked the ball out of bounds late with less than a second left, the fans stormed the court. I thought storming the court was supposed to be reserved for big upset. UCLA over Cal most definitely doesn't qualify. The bigger problem, as I see it, was that the fans stormed the court before the game was over. That should NEVER happen. And, I was very disappointed with the actions of the officials.

A couple weeks ago, in a game between teams that aren't in BCS conferences, the home team tied the game as time expired. The crowd rushed the court, maybe not realizing that their team hadn't won the game and that overtime was necessary. The result was a technical foul and the visiting team started OT with a lead ... bizarre, I know. I may not remember correctly, but I think both teams scored the same number of points in OT, so it would have been a double OT game (theoretically) if the fans hadn't screwed up.

What happened on Saturday? The fans stormed the court before the game ended but the home team UCLA Bruins were not penalized. What's the rule? Why is it a technical foul on the home team in one case and not in the other? Cal was down one. Given an opportunity at 2 FT's from a technical foul, they might have pulled the game out (they might have won if there had been a foul call on the late TO ... and it looked from the angle that I saw that the ball was touched last by a Bruin ... so I'm not sure why UCLA got the ball).

You might not believe me, but I really don't have anything against UCLA. I don't care for the contact they get away with on the defensive end ... it's not as fun to watch basketball when the defense is mugging the offense. The fact of that matter is that they were helped out by the officials in both games against the bay area teams, and if they had lost because their crowd stormed the court, then that would have been the best-case scenario for me.

Then, maybe the coaches would lean on their presidents to keep students and other fans off the floor after games. One or two publicized incidents of the students being rounded up after they storm the courts and given tickets or fines (I'd think they'd want to keep all those street shoes off the courts and it can't be safe for the players or fans) might serve as additional deterrent. If you just send them back to their seats to reload so they can do it again when the game is actually over, without any penalty to their team, what kind of message are you sending? It's not a good one.