Duke basketball’s Jon Scheyer asks for better safety protocols after Clemson court storm
When jubilant Clemson students poured out of their seats and on to the Littlejohn Coliseum court Saturday, Duke freshman forward Kon Knueppel found himself surrounded under the basket.
A few feet away, with charged-up students in between, Duke’s players and coaches attempted to get from their bench to their locker room after losing, 77-71, to the Tigers.
That put Duke coach Jon Scheyer in protection mode.
“I was put in a position where I shielded our guys from people running up and getting in their face,” Scheyer said Monday morning. “I don’t think we want something to happen and then have to make a decision to do something.”
Last February, something did happen when Wake Forest students collided with Duke sophomore forward Kyle Filipowski during a court storm at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem. Filipowski was helped from the court with a knee injury that, although it didn’t cause him to miss the team’s next game, it raised concern about whether the ACC should allow fans to storm the court.
Monday, Scheyer was intentional about not criticizing Clemson coach Brad Brownell or his staff. In fact, Brownell helped Scheyer and the Blue Devils get from their bench area to their locker room by grabbing Scheyer and leading the Blue Devils the opposite direction in front of the Clemson bench and through a different tunnel.
By that point, security staff and local police lined up side by side to separate Duke and Clemson players from the celebrating fans. But it happened too late for Scheyer’s comfort.
“The officials, they tried to stop the rush for just a second, just so we could get our players off the court,” Scheyer said. “I think they should rush and court storming and all that. Just, we’ve got to get our players off the court safely. And that wasn’t a safe environment, no question about it.”
Unlike some other conferences, most notably the SEC, the ACC has no rules in place to penalize schools that allow their fans to storm the playing area following games. The SEC has fined schools in those instances for two decades and court storming still occur.
But it has led some schools to get creative about how to protect visiting teams. Having already been fined $850,000 over court and field storming incidents this school year, Vanderbilt established a policy involving a one-minute countdown clock before access will be granted to the court or field.
“Once the countdown expires and the court is clear, students and fans are welcome to access the court for up to 30 minutes,” university officials wrote last week in a email to students, according to The Tennessean.
That’s the type of thinking Scheyer wants to happen in the ACC because, in the crucial final seconds of a game, he’d rather be focused on how to lead his team to a victory rather than how to negotiate a safe passage from the court.
“Clemson, they played a big-time game, and had a big-time win, and that should have been the story,” Scheyer said. “But, look, it’s crossing my mind at the end of the game about trying to make sure our players are safe. And that shouldn’t be my responsibility in that moment. Security should have that taken care of.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 12:26 PM with the headline "Duke basketball’s Jon Scheyer asks for better safety protocols after Clemson court storm."