Clark Kellogg on Kyle Filipowski injury during court storming: 'You have to make the penalty significant enough to deter it happening'
It was an exciting Saturday afternoon for college basketball, which saw the Wake Forest Demon Deacons topple the No. 8 Duke Blue Devils at home 83-79. Unfortunately, the majority of conversations following the game have been surrounding the Wake Forest court storming that injured Duke’s star big man Kyle Filipowski.
The CBS college basketball analyst team of Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis addressed the aftermath of the Demon Deacons fans’ court storming, which resulted in Filipowski’s injury. And Kellogg is not a fan of continuing the tradition, especially after Saturday’s incident. According to the CBS Sports analyst, the NCAA needs to implement stiffer punishments for court storming.
“I think you have to make the penalty significant enough to deter it happening,” said Kellogg. “Security is part of the answer, but you have to be prepared. And then you just have to have a penalty that’s extremely dissuading so that we don’t have this because somebody’s gonna seriously get hurt. And you don’t want that to happen before we do what needs to be done in regards to safety.”
The bright spot of the Wake Forest and Duke’s matchup: the Demon Deacons are now 15-0 at home. A feat that they have been unable to pull off since NBA veteran guard Chris Paul was a student on campus. But instead of celebrating the accomplishment by Wake Forest and the team possibly jumping into the field of 68, player safety is the focus of the conversation.
Still, this is not the first time this topic has been broached this season. Earlier in the year, women’s college basketball superstar Caitlin Clark was knocked over by an Ohio State fan when the Buckeyes pulled off the upset victory over the Hawkeyes at home. With this being the second time this season that a star college basketball player has taken a shot by a fan, many around the game believe something now has to be done.
Before the segment closed, Kellogg provided a suggestion to possibly prevent instances like this from happening with future court storming, but not before condemning the action altogether.
“I think you just shut it down. I don’t think you can have a middle ground. You’re trying to play both sides against the middle,” said Kellogg.
If the NCAA is going to continue to allow court stormings. Kellogg believes they need to provide players, coaches, and officials ample time to exit the floor before the celebration commences, with that being the case:
“The players and coaches need to get off the court. And if you want to have a post-court storm a minute and 1/2 after the game, then you can do that, but the players, coaches, and officials have to be given room to get off the court safely.”