Wake Forest Shocks Duke: Court Storming Controversy
Transcript
00:00 Now, there's a big picture conversation to be had following the end result of Wake Forest
00:08 and Duke on Saturday evening.
00:11 We start with the game and then we'll get to the court storm.
00:14 Wake Forest wins at home 83-79, covering as a two and a half point home favorite.
00:22 The kids should pay attention to the betting odds before you storm the floor.
00:27 Snapping a five game win streak for the Duke Blue Devils, Hunter Salas, the native of Omaha,
00:31 Nebraska and a Millard North alum, 29 points a game high for the Demon Deeks, who've now
00:37 won five of their last seven.
00:40 Game goes over 150 and a half.
00:42 Again, Duke had won five straight.
00:44 They had covered in five in a row.
00:45 They had gone under in five straight on the win streak as well.
00:49 Wake wins outright and covers as a two and a half point home favorite on Saturday against
00:54 the Dukies.
00:56 Big win for Wake now.
00:57 Improves them to 18-9 on the season, but also 10-6 in conference play in the ACC.
01:02 Back in the day, as I like to say, maybe even 10 years ago, 10-6 in the ACC.
01:06 You're printing your way into the actual March Madness tournament without that at-large bid.
01:11 You're going to get the at-large bid as opposed to the automatic bid that might be required
01:15 now.
01:16 That's a big win, but also we are going to talk about what happened post-game and what
01:19 can be said and done about that.
01:21 That's a good win for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and we've seen it a lot this season.
01:24 The unranked team at home going against the ranked team.
01:27 In this one, they were laying points here and still got that late cover as well.
01:30 Good win for Wake Forest.
01:31 Duque, look, you're going to be losing some of these games now, dropping to 12-4 in conference
01:35 play.
01:36 They're getting to the tournament, but that's a nice win for Wake Forest.
01:38 They needed that win to help solidify that final resume.
01:43 Wake was expected to win.
01:44 Again, they were a two and a half point home favorite despite being unranked against one
01:48 of the hottest teams in their conference, the Duke Blue Devils.
01:52 When you have a home unranked favorite against a road ranked underdog in the month of February,
02:00 that home favorite is now eight and three straight up, seven and four against the spread.
02:07 That is how good those trends are.
02:09 We will get to the court storm in just a little bit, but I will say my biggest issue with
02:14 the court storm is a team rushing the court when they were booked as a favorite to win
02:20 outright.
02:21 It could be very easily done, as we have seen put into place with court storms here in 2024.
02:27 It is on the arena security to have a safe exit route for the opposing road team, which
02:34 we have seen time and again.
02:37 That was not the case, sadly, in Winston-Salem on Saturday.
02:41 No, it certainly wasn't.
02:43 And also, there are ways that you can get around this, but I think we can all agree,
02:46 and we did put a poll out here at SportsGridTV on XT to see what your thoughts would be on
02:51 as well, should it be time to stop, yes or no, here, these court stormings.
02:55 I like the pageantry of the court storm, but it is apparent that it is getting way out
02:59 of hand at this point.
03:00 And Saturday may be a culmination of that, because typically we see the fans hit the
03:05 court and they are just looking to run to the center.
03:07 The players are already gone, but this one just looked like an absolute avalanche, as
03:11 if it was a movie set where teams and players were just sprinting to the middle of the court,
03:16 running like 4-4-40s, not giving a damn if there were players after whoever they would
03:20 run into.
03:21 I think this is one of those options where we do see now, you know, schools getting fined
03:25 $50,000, $100,000 for these fines.
03:28 They're going to start docking them penalties, like, hey, if you storm the court, you might
03:31 not be able to play in your conference tournament moving forward.
03:34 Do I think you should get that salacious?
03:36 No, I don't.
03:37 But it has to stop.
03:38 There are ways that we're going to talk about how they can still have this fun, but still
03:41 be a safe environment.
03:43 What happened at Wake Forest was absolutely egregious and crazy that maybe somebody didn't
03:48 get hurt worse.
03:49 Even if you don't know what's going on, if you saw John Shire leave the bench after the
03:52 game, it was like, wait, my player's getting carried off the court, what's going on?
03:55 That's when teams and players just start throwing bombs at fans, and it turns into a malice
03:59 at the Palace, and it's not the player's fault.
04:03 Absolutely so.
04:04 Donnie is completely spot on.
04:05 Of course, a lot of this conversation culminated with seeing Kyle Filipowski, the star big
04:10 for Duke, in a collision with a Wake Forest student and fan rushing the court.
04:16 Wake Forest kids were out there before we had triple zeros in regulation.
04:21 A poor job by arena security to keep them off the floor and not allow a safe exit.
04:28 Kyle Filipowski did tweak his knee.
04:31 We will update his status as he moves forward in that collision with a fan.
04:36 There were videos highlighting one way or the other who you believe is at fault.
04:41 Nobody, the fan, nor especially Filipowski, should be put in that situation where we even
04:48 have to delve out blame on who initiated the collision.
04:52 It shouldn't happen in the first place, and that is pretty clear to see if you argue against
04:57 it either which way.
04:59 [MUSIC]