Kyle Filipowski injury update: Court storming leaves Duke star with knee injury vs Wake Forest

Duke men’s basketball suffered more than just a loss on Saturday.

As Wake Forest students stormed the court at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum Saturday following the Demon Deacons’ 83-79 victory against Duke, Blue Devils star big man Kyle Filipowski was injured when he collided with one of the fans running onto the floor.

Filipowski was moving noticeably gingerly and had to be helped off the floor. Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said Filipowski suffered an ankle injury before clarifying it was actually the center's knee.

Filipowski said after the game he felt multiple fans were swarming him, saying he was "getting punched in the back" and saying it was "personal."

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Kyle Filipowski injury update

Duke coach Jon Scheyer said after the game that Filipowski had a sprained ankle as a result of the collision, though he said he wasn’t sure at this time what it meant for his playing status moving forward. Scheyer later corrected the injury to a knee injury, per CBS Sports' Matt Norlander.

“When are we going to ban court-storming? When are we going to ban that?” Scheyer said after the game. “How many times does a player have to get into something where they get punched or they get pushed or they get taunted right in their face? It’s a dangerous thing.”

This section will be updated as updates become available

Court storming controversies

The discussion over court-storming has existed for years, if not decades. Questions about the ritual and the safety concerns it presents have intensified this season after a handful of high-profile incidents.

Most notably, Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark fell to the floor after being run into by an Ohio State fan after the Buckeyes’ 100-92 overtime victory against the Hawkeyes on Jan. 21. Clark didn’t suffer a major injury or miss any games due to the crash.

Kyle Filipowski stats

Heading into the game at Wake Forest, Filipowski was averaging a team-high 16.9 points and 8.2 rebounds per game while shooting 50.2% from the field.

Duke doesn’t play again until a home matchup Wednesday against Louisville, which enters the contest at 8-19 and in last place in the ACC.

Kyle Filipowski updates injury status, comments on court storming

Talking to reporters after the game, Filipowski said he believed the contact was not incidental and instead targeted toward him.

"I felt a bunch of hits on my body," Filipowski said, per WFMY News 2's Brian Hall. "This one was the worst of them. So it's just really ridiculous of how that situation's handled."

When asked if it was intentional, Filipowski replied: "I've already heard that there's some videos of getting punched in the back. So I absolutely feel like it's 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 around me. There's no excuse for that."

“At least when I played, it was 10 seconds and then you would storm the court,” Scheyer said. “Now, it’s the buzzer doesn’t even go off and they’re running on the floor. This has happened to us a bunch this year.”

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Kyle Filipowski injury update: Duke star injures knee in court storming