Court storming is fun and games, till someone gets hurt

Thinking out loud … while wondering if in another 20 years, there will be a college course titled “Making Eye Contact?”

Court storming and field rushing in sports, like all-star games, are fun to watch — until someone gets run over.

It hurts the eyes to watch our greatest athletes pretend to play a meaningful game just because they’re called an all-star. Talked about this last week. There’s no longer a competitive desire, or will, to play a meaningful game because there’s not enough incentive to overcome the possibility of injury.

Storming the field in college football, or court storming in basketball, can be riveting. Exciting. And dangerous, especially for visiting teams that can’t get off the field or court in time before the crowd descends. That happened this week in the ACC when Wake Forest beat North Carolina, and the Tar Heels’ Kyle Filipowski was injured as Wake students rushed the floor.

It also happened recently to Iowa star Caitlin Clark at Ohio State. Poor job by security workers? By the officials for not recognizing situations in advance? By the players for not beating a hasty retreat once the clock hit 00:00? Yes, yes and yes.

Seems like it was handled pretty well at the AMP/Dunk the last time the court was stormed when clinching a Big East championship in 2022. Except for when our radio equipment got doused by the requisite Gatorade shower.Here’s a fix — forget the conference and school fines. They don’t work. They don’t deter anyone from celebrating an emotional outcome. You really want to stop these? I don’t — they’re unique to college sports and one of the few tenets of amateurism we seem to have left. But if you want them stopped for safety reasons, call a forfeit for the offending team/school.

That will stop the court storming and the field rushing right in its tracks. But I’ll wager no one has the guts (or the smahts) at the conference or NCAA level, to put that rule in place. But what about, say, a 30-second head start on the clock to get off the floor or field before the rush?

∎UMass found a home for football and most other sports this week, with the announcement of their move into the Mid-American Conference for 2025-26.

The Minutemen were independent in football and a founding member in the Atlantic 10 (since 1976 in the old ECBL) for basketball, but make no mistake about it, this is a move made for football. Not quite on the scale of joining the Big Ten or SEC, but life as a lower-end independent in Division I simply isn’t sustainable.

Can’t wait for those titanic UMass-Akron and UMass-Eastern Michigan games highlighting the TV schedule. Ridicule aside, they’ll likely be competitive within their new league.

∎Hockey stays in Hockey East. But hoops (and other sports) bailing on tradition is simply a by-product of football grabbing the present-day "tiger by the tail," and ruling over every other sport on every other major college campus in the country these days.

∎And quite likely, maybe even ironically, UMass basketball should be competitive in the MAC. They haven’t been a top-tier team in the A-10 for several seasons. The last great season of note was their Final Four year in ’96 that included an NCAA stop in the Providence Civic Center along the way.

∎OK, so it hasn’t really gone as planned for Rhody’s Rams, but if you’re already thinking ahead, consider the last two weeks for URI’s David Fuchs. He’s been the A-10 Rookie of the Week the past two weeks and went for 23 points and 12 rebounds against Richmond.

∎How about this "win" for URI? Alumnus Thomas Drury and wife Catherine recently pledged $1 million for renovations to the URI Athletic Complex, benefiting both men’s and women’s programs. This will augment the $65 million capital plan fund that was recently approved in the state budget.

∎At 2-5 in the Ivies, Brown appeared to be toast. But after wins last weekend at Columbia and Cornell, the Bears are right back in the mix for “Ivy Madness” — tied for the fourth and final playoff spot going into the weekend.

∎And Brown released this week that it will host Ivy Madness next year, the Ivy League’s postseason, four-team tournament for both men’s and women’s basketball. That’ll put the pressure on the Bears to be there, won’t it — considering they’ve yet to make it?

∎Bryant still stands to make a postseason run, at least in America East. But the Bulldogs need to learn how to finish what they start. Coming into the week, the Dogs lost two straight to UMass-Lowell and Vermont, holding seven-point, second-half leads in both games.

∎Forty players from around the country are on the United States Basketball Writers Association list for the Oscar Robertson Trophy (Best Player) and All-America "watch list." PC’s Devin Carter is on that list, along with Cumberland's (and Marquette’s) Tyler Kolek, UConn’s Tristen Newton, Creighton’s Baylor Scheierman and Seton Hall’s Kadary Richmond.

Ball don’t lie. We’ve got some players (or is that playaz?) around here.

∎Saw this week where several NBA Draft boards are listing Carter as a potential Top 10 college player. Don’t get all hot-and-bothered over that — remember there will be 20 or 30 foreign players you’ve never heard of that will also figure into this years’ draft.

But with a flourishing finish to this season, Carter is on track to be a first-round pick, yes.

∎This Week in the Big East, Episode Eight, for 2024 drops this week featuring Georgetown and former PC head coach Ed Cooley, UConn sharpshooter Cam Spencer and NCAA.com analyst and reporter extraordinaire Andy Katz. Two weeks to go before the Garden. Catch it on Westwoodonesports.com and BigEast.com, as well as on SiriusXM and Westwood One radio.

∎A shout-out to the Anchorwomen at Rhode Island College. Not only are they now the four-time Little East Tournament champs, as we’ve written previously, they finished this season undefeated at 27-0 and ranked third in the country. The Division III NCAA tournament begins this week.

∎Rhody men’s track and field won its’ 4th straight A-10 indoor title this past week, while PC’s women claimed four individual titles in the recent Big East Championships.

∎Watching “The Dynasty” on Apple TV? The first three program drops (six episodes) dealt with a lot more of the controversy surrounding the Patriots’ dynastic run than the accomplishments of the run itself.

Here’s a recap: Spygate was dumb. Anyone can see a team use signals from the sideline. But the Patriots were sloppy and perhaps too cocky with their execution. Deflategate simply defied science. Retiring NFL insider Peter King acknowledged that his reporting on the story is one of his greatest professional regrets. He was wrong, and the NFL was wrong in perpetuating a myth.

Which, again, makes the whole thing "stupid is as stupid does."

It’s a slap in the face to guys like Bruschi, Law, McGinest, Vrabel, Seymour, Wilfork, Harrison, TB12, Welker, Gronkowski, Brown, Branch, Dillon, Edelman — n’est-ce pas?

Oh, and don’t forget Bill Belichick. We won’t see dominance like that again for a long time. Hope you enjoyed it.

∎There is some Rhode Island history behind the actual start to this dynastic run. Robert Kraft purchased the Patriots from James Busch Orthwein 30 years ago last month, saving New England’s pro football team from a certain move westward to St. Louis. It was a nerve-racking time professionally, because our sports department had impeccable sources, stuck its neck out and first reported (on WPRO) that the deal was made to keep the team in Foxboro.

I vividly recall future workmate Dan Patrick at ESPN leading SportsCenter that night in mid-January 1994 with the story. OUR story. Gulp.

It took a week to cross the T’s and dot the I’s in the contract before the announcement was made public. Our newsroom, account execs and many in the regional and national media thought we were daft. I was on the receiving end of several daily calls from well-known national and local reporters demanding our sources.

Can you imagine the uproar if social media had existed then in our culture as it does now? The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

∎The least enjoyable week on the NFL calendar was this week — unless, of course, you enjoy watching men running and jumping around in tights.

∎De facto general manager and director of scouting Eliot Wolf is "da man," replacing Da Man Bill Belichick. He and head coach Jerod Mayo will do the shopping, Mayo the cooking — and Wolf will have the final say over the dinner — which is fine, as long as he’s ready for the food fight to follow when things go south.

Loved his quote this week when he told the media the Patriots would have a “less-hard-ass-type vibe” around the team. Not for nothin’, but that hard-ass-type vibe for 20 years brought six Super Bowl trophies and nine Super Bowl appearances to New England. Be careful what you wish for.

∎Friend and former workmate Glenn Ordway (WEEI Boston) was this week selected for induction into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Ordway (in the Bay State, along with Eddie Andelman) and Chuck Wilson (in the Ocean State) helped define the genre of sports radio, not just here, but nationally as well.

∎You think life is sometimes unfair? Consider the plight of ex-Sox pitcher Tim and wife Stacy Wakefield’s two children. Dad died from brain cancer five months ago. Mom passed away from cancer this week.

∎The Celtics’ road winning streak is definitely the stuff from which championships are made. But I’d still be happier if we could see the team save a little somethin’ in reserve for an extra fourth-quarter defensive stop or two.

∎Stop me if you’ve seen or heard this before: Bruins hold a lead. Bruins suffer a third-period defensive lapse. Bruins give up a lead. Bruins go into overtime. Bruins lose in a shootout. As predictable as Tax Day every April. Am I right?

Interested in having your questions on Rhode Island sports (and yes, that includes the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics) answered in a somewhat timely fashion? Think out loud and send your questions, comments and local stories to jrbroadcaster@gmail.com. We’ll share mailbag comments/Facebook posts/threads right here! Join me on Twitter/X, @JRbroadcaster…on Facebook, www.facebook.com/john.rooke and on Instagram and Threads @JRbroadcaster.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Court storming is fun and games — till someone gets hurt