Sean Miller devoted the final five minutes of his nine-minute postgame address to court storming, which happened Wednesday after a UA Pac-12 loss for the 11th time in the past four seasons.
When he finished, complaining among other things that the issue was falling on “deaf ears,” I mentioned that Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was on hand Wednesday.
“He doesn’t care,” Miller said.
Anyway, here’s the full text of what Miller said about the issue:
“Let me say one last thing here. The one thing that I’ll say about our situation is simple, this: I have no problem being a great sport and I have no problem recognizing that Colorado deserved to win tonight. They won the game. They’re the better team. But eventually what’s going to happen in the Pac-12 is this: An Arizona player is going to punch a fan. 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.'
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“And then if the court wants to be stormed, fine. But until that happens, it’s fallen on deaf ears because there’s only one team right now that the court’s stormed on and for three consecutive years anytime we lose a game on the road it’s the same. Some are more under control, some aren’t. But if 7-foot, 250–pound Kaleb Tarzcewski gets bumped literally three seconds after the game ends and he retaliates, what would be the response of our conference? What would be the response? If more teams were having the court stormed on them, I wouldn’t be the only guy who’s bringing it up.
“There’s no sport—football, any sport in the country, professional, major league, whatever, where this happens to the level it happens. And what I mean is it’s literally within five seconds you have a mad rush on the court before our players can even leave the court. We lost to a good team. All credit should be pointed to Colorado.”
I asked him specifically if Tarczewski was bumped. Miller then went into the potential legal problems that might result if the court storming escalates:
“Everybody gets bumped. It’s that something has to happen to stop the mad rush. I’m only saying that for this: l’m going to be fine. Somebody can say whatever they want to me -- spit, do whatever you want -- but I’m worried about the players who are under my direction. If we lose fine, let us get off the court, at least have some substance and control so that our guys aren’t in a situation where a lawsuit could come because when that comes, then and only then, will everybody pay attention. But the whole thing we’ve talked about, it’s falling on deaf ears right now. I don’t know what other conferences are doing but if there is a fine, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be people just storming over the bench within five seconds of the victory.
“I’m glad Colorado’s excited and I’m not saying anything disparaging toward that. It’s just I’m coaching Arizona, and it’s like tough because not everybody’s going through it and because of that nobody cares except me. But from this point forward, I care and we’re almost at a point where our guys have to protect themselves and as they protect themselves it’s going to be a really tough situation that’s coming.
Miller was asked about details of who was hit and it was mentioned how Colorado’s setup is challenging for fans. He responded:
“It’s hard to control a mad dash of 10 rows that is literally leaping over the bench. I don’t know who got bumped; I just watched the whole thing happen. And guess what, we can’t lose on the road anymore so they won’t storm the court. That’s the solution, right?
“But I’m just telling you there’s a lot of things on a college campus that everybody’s up in arms about. 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. And it all starts (after not saying) just protect the players, let them off the court. Then we’ll move on to Utah and congratulations.”
The court storming, and Miller’s concerns, are nothing new. After ASU fans stormed the court following a win over UA last year, Miller said schools should be fined $100,000 for court storming.
The SEC fines schools up to $50,000 for court storming, but the Pac-12 does not.
Since 2012-13, fans at Oregon (twice), ASU (twice), Colorado (twice), USC (twice), Cal (twice), UNLV and Oregon State have all rushed the floor after big wins over UA.
Colorado's Coors Event Center has a uniquely difficult challenge for any visiting team that loses: Not only are CU students just a few feet away from the end of the visitors’ bench, but the visitors must cross the entire length of the court to reach their locker room.
A veteran of nine court storms with UA, Brandon Ashley said last year that the Wildcats’ 71-58 loss at Boulder on Feb. 14, 2013, was the toughest because of the logistics.
“It was probably the worst for the simple fact that we were on the far side, and we had to walk all way across the court through the crowd,” Ashley said.
This time, before the Wildcats could shake hands or get to their locker room Wednesday, several of them were jostled about by excited student fans. The few security guards were engulfed and the floor was packed within seconds.
(In contrast, Cal’s court storming after it beat UA last month caused no issues with players because student fans were mostly on the opposite side of the court and the Bears had a thick line of security to wall them off from the departing players.)
Looking for late-season intensity in his own team, Miller instead found it the most in Colorado’s Josh Scott, and complimented the Buffs’ big man for it. Scott had 26 points and nine rebounds.
“You want to see somebody like him, who’s one of the best players in our conference, down the home stretch of his senior year play his heart out,” Miller said. “You look at his numbers tonight and he dominated. He did it against a very good front line and his partner Wesley Gordon, with how good he is, and how good they were…”
Arizona’s loss means the Wildcats appear unlikely to win the Pac-12 title outright. The Wildcats are now a game behind Oregon and tied with Utah, but even a win over Utah and a home sweep next week wouldn’t leap them back over the Ducks unless Oregon loses twice between a home game with Washington on Sunday and two games in Los Angeles next week.
Our full coverage from Wednesday: A game story, Greg Hansen's column, seen-and-heard notes and a photo gallery.
OSU beat Washington at the buzzer, while Oregon took care of WSU.
On Thursday, Utah will host ASU at the Huntsman Center (8 p.m., Pac-12 Networks).
Other Pac-12 games Thursday:
UCLA at Cal, 7 p.m., ESPN2
USC at Stanford, 9 p.m., Pac-12 Networks
