Sean Miller wants court storming banned before player punches fan

In the aftermath of a loss to Colorado that ended with a court storming at his team's expense, Arizona coach Sean Miller did something more high-profile coaches should do.

Without prompting, Miller spoke eloquently yet forcefully about the dangers of allowing fans to pour onto the floor without properly protecting the visiting team.

"Eventually what's going to happen in the Pac-12 is this: An Arizona player is going to punch a fan," Miller told reporters in Boulder after Arizona's 75-72 loss Wednesday night. "And they’re going to punch the fan out of self-defense. And when it happens, only when it happens, will everybody say `We have to do something so that when the game ends we have a deep breath to be able to leave the court. Or at least shake the other team’s hand and then get to our locker room.' And then if the court wants to be stormed, fine."

Miller's comments came after a court storming as swift as any his team has endured in recent years. When Allonzo Trier missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer at the buzzer, Colorado students overran the few security guards on hand and swallowed up most of the floor within seconds, jostling several of the Wildcats in the process.

Colorado's Coors Event Center has a uniquely difficult set-up for visiting teams trying to escape on-rushing students. The student section is adjacent to the visiting bench and visiting players must traverse the entire length of the floor to reach their locker room.

Miller has voiced concern about court stormings to Pac-12 officials in the past, however, he said Wednesday night that it has so far "fallen on deaf ears." Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne backed Miller in a series of tweets sent Thursday morning.

Miller's statement that an Arizona player will "punch a fan" may draw criticism because of his frankness, but there's a good chance that was a calculated comment designed to draw attention to the issue. Regardless, that shouldn't overshadow the rest of Miller's point because he is spot-on. Court storming is a tradition that players and fans have long enjoyed, yet a handful of scary incidents in recent years have shown the risks often outweigh the fun.

In Jan. 2013, NC State forward C.J. Leslie had to lift a fellow student to safety after he was thrown from his wheelchair during the court storming that followed the Wolfpack's upset of Duke. In Feb. 2014, a melee erupted at Utah Valley when New Mexico State players exchanged punches with on-rushing fans just after the final buzzer.

Last February, a knucklehead Kansas State fan rushed at Kansas forward Jamari Traylor and body checked him on his way off the floor during a court storming in the wake of an upset victory. Neither head coach was safe either as Bill Self and Bruce Weber both got pinned against the scorer's table by the crush of on-rushing bodies.

The most severe court storming injury of all actually occurred minutes from the Arizona campus in Feb. 2004 when an avalanche of Tucson High students spilled onto the court after senior Joe Kay clinched a win with a two-handed breakaway dunk. The torn carotid artery and stroke Kay suffered that day left him paralyzed on one side and robbed him of many of the gifts that enabled him to become the valedictorian of his class, win awards for his saxophone skills and earn a volleyball scholarship to Stanford.

"My injuries are something I'll have to deal with the rest of my life," Kay told Yahoo Sports in 2014. "If court-storming didn't exist, or if none of the people at my high school had ever really seen it on TV, it probably never would have happened. People claim it's a tradition but we shouldn't have tradition if it's unsafe. It doesn't make sense."

Miller has previously said schools should be fined $100,000 any time fans storm the floor. That’s double the  fine imposed on schools by the SEC, the only major conference that penalizes fans for rushing the court.

"There’s a lot of things on a college campus that everybody’s up in arms about," Miller said Wednesday night. "I’m watching this and telling you there’s going to be a situation that happens and they’ll be no turning back when it happens.

"Just protect the players, let them off the court."

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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