[Cactus Jack]

Should never happen, but give anything enough time and it probably will.

Some factors that Rupp has going for it:

1. Tradition. Kentucky could be terrible for years and it would still be embarrassing to see it happen. Maybe it does if there's nearly a decade of late Billy Gillispie level bad teams and we win win a huge game, but we have such a good record against everyone in the SEC that it still probably doesn't make sense. With non-conference games like the ones we'd play against a North Carolina, Duke, or Kansas becoming less common, this lowers the chance of it happening even more.

2. Student section is small and in an area that's easy to control-- police could line up in front of the Erupption Zone and have a good chance at keeping students off the floor. Other student tickets are either in the old sections 32-34 (sideline near the baseline and corners) and there's a lot of obstacles/distance from the court. The rest of the student tickets are in the upper arena. Again, not very conducive to storming the court.


I've been saying this for some time, but it's going to take one really bad incident before the court storming and field rushing is basically stopped for good. Too many bad things can happen (e.g., someone getting trampled, a pissed off player with tons of physical strength hitting someone who is taunting them and really hurting them, or a fight starting and a mob ganging up on an opposing player and really hurting them, etc.) and when it does, it will be bad.

In my opinion, the best solution for this is what happened when I attended a college game in an indoor arena that'd previously hosted big events (including NFL games and Final Fours).

Basically, the event organizers could see the writing on the wall and that the field was going to be stormed. They had tons of security around the field and made an announcement that there'd be a five minute period after the final buzzer to allow the opposing team to clear the field, and once that had elapsed, fans would be able to enter the area of play. Anyone who attempted to storm the field before the stadium gave the "ready" would be arrested and prosecuted.

Once the venue gave the "ready", fans would have 45 minutes to be on the field, celebrate with the team, and take photos. The opposing team had plenty of time to get off the field, fans knew that they were eventually getting on the field and behaved like normal people can do (I don't think I saw anyone try to get on the field prematurely), people working at the venue simply opened the gates at the front row and let people walk out onto the field in an orderly manner, and most of the winning team stayed on the field to took pictures and sign autographs.

The size and design of the venue, plus the amount of security they had made this all work well. I'm not sure that it'd go as smoothly as somewhere like Commonwealth, but I do think a "controlled storming" is something that could work and that schools should look into this (or taking measures to ensure that no one can storm the field even if they tried).