New camera angle shows moment Duke star Kyle Filipowski was injured in Wake Forest court storm
A new camera angle emerged of the collision that will reverberate around college basketball from Saturday afternoon. It more clearly depicts the hit between a court stormer and Kyle Filipowski that injured the Duke star.
Wake Forest fans poured on to the court after a win over the Blue Devils on Saturday afternoon, and cameras quickly caught Filipowski getting dinged up in the rush of fans onto the court. From the initial angle, it was unclear if one or multiple fans were part of the collision that left him with a lower leg injury.
This second view, taken from above, shows the fan who could been seen tumbling over in the original video was the one who caused the injury, barreling into Filipowski’s right knee and leg as the center cut across traffic to try to get to the bench.
The fan apparently taunts or says something to Filipowski as he comes past, and the Duke star extended an arm bar as he sought to have a clear space to get to his teammates and Duke staff a few feet away.
Filipowski was around the middle of the court, width-wise and a toward the Duke side of center court when the game ended. But fans stormed the court almost simultaneously to the final buzzer and descended on the players in an instant, as seen in the initial video of the incident from the TV copy.
Shortly after the collision, Filipowski made it to the safety of teammates and coaches, who quickly helped him hobble to the locker room.
Quickly after the game, Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said Filipowski suffered a sprained ankle, but Filipowski said it was his knee.
Filipowski said he felt it was personal that he got hit
During an interview with WFMY-TV afterward, Filipowski said he thought the injury happened on purpose.
“I’ve already heard that there’s some videos of getting punched in the back,” Filipowski said. “So I absolutely feel like it was personal, intentional, for sure. There’s no reason where they see a big guy like me trying to work my way off the court and they can’t just work their way around me. There’s no excuse for that.”
Scheyer called on a ban on court-storming in light of Saturday’s situation, and Filipowski said he wasn’t happy with how everything unfolded.
“I felt a bunch of hits on my body. This one was the worst of them,” Filipowski said. “It’s just really ridiculous of how that situation’s handled.”
On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report