Kansas Jayhawks basketball coach Bill Self on court storming: ‘I don’t like it’

University of Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self has watched replays of Saturday’s court-storming incident at Wake Forest that resulted in a knee injury to Duke’s Kyle Filipowski.

“That was one of the quickest ones I’ve ever seen,” Self said Monday.

Demon Deacon students poured from the stands and flooded the court just as the final horn sounded in Wake’s 83-79 victory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

“That happened so fast,” Self continued, “if you don’t have the proper security in a situation like that, it would be hard to imagine that fans do not come in contact with visiting players which could lead obviously to injuries or legal things down the road. I would hope they could just totally do away with them.”

Court storms haven’t happened at Allen Fieldhouse, to Self’s recollection.

“We haven’t stormed the court here,” he said. “I don’t think we ever have here in my time and even before that. I’m not saying that in any way shape or form that, ‘That’s the way it has to be,’ or we’re the standard, but I do believe its gotten way out of control.”

Opposing fans have stormed the court after three of Kansas’ five Big 12 road losses since the onset of conference play this season.

No Jayhawks players or coaches were injured after celebrations by students at West Virginia, UCF and Iowa State. Fans at Kansas State and Texas Tech elected to not storm after defeating the Jayhawks.

“We’ve probably been stormed on about as much as anybody, I would think,” Self said. “There was a period of time every road loss we had on a home court it seemed like there was a court storming.

“We’ve actually gotten better at it because of the way you can prep your team in certain ways. A lot of the safety measures up until recently I think have been with the visiting team educating their own players how to handle it. I mean like calling a timeout with 15 seconds left and it’s a 10-point game, to get guys out of the game, or tell (your players), ‘Don’t go out there. Stand next to the sideline.’

“Those things happen even with that that. It should not be the responsibility of the visiting team to educate their guys.”

Of court storming in general, Self said: “I don’t like it. I’d think the leagues could certainly put stiff enough penalties down on places that do that that would certainly deter those things from ever happening at least from my standpoint.”

KU senior Nick Timberlake, meanwhile, is not against court storming.

“I mean I don’t think there’s much that can happen. I feel most of the time you can if you are in that position kind of expect it’s going to happen, move toward the sideline,” Timberlake said Monday.

“I know in games it’s happened to us already the game’s already over the last 15 seconds. Play is kind of dying down. It kind of happens from there. I don’t think they should take it out of the game, though.”