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 โdeaf ears,โ I mentioned that Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was on hand Wednesday.
โHe doesnโt care,โ Miller said.
Anyway, hereโs the full text of what Miller said about the issue:
โLet me say one last thing here. The one thing that Iโll 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. Theyโre the better team. But eventually whatโs going to happen in the Pac-12 is this: An Arizona player is going to punch a fan. And theyโre 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 teamโs hand and then get to our locker room.'
โAnd then if the court wants to be stormed, fine. But until that happens, itโs fallen on deaf ears because thereโs only one team right now that the courtโs stormed on and for three consecutive years anytime we lose a game on the road itโs the same. Some are more under control, some arenโt. But if 7-foot, 250โpound 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 wouldnโt be the only guy whoโs bringing it up.
โThereโs no sportโfootball, any sport in the country, professional, major league, whatever, where this happens to the level it happens. And what I mean is itโs 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.โ
I asked him specifically if Tarczewski was bumped. Miller then went into the potential legal problems that might result if the court storming escalates:
โEverybody gets bumped. Itโs that something has to happen to stop the mad rush. Iโm only saying that for this: lโm going to be fine. Somebody can say whatever they want to me -- spit, do whatever you want -- but Iโm 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 arenโt in a situation where a lawsuit could come because when that comes, then and only then, will everybody pay attention. But the whole thing weโve talked about, itโs falling on deaf ears right now. I donโt know what other conferences are doing but if there is a fine, Iโm pretty sure there wouldnโt be people just storming over the bench within five seconds of the victory.
โIโm glad Coloradoโs excited and Iโm not saying anything disparaging toward that. Itโs just Iโm coaching Arizona, and itโs like tough because not everybodyโs going through it and because of that nobody cares except me. But from this point forward, I care and weโre almost at a point where our guys have to protect themselves and as they protect themselves itโs going to be a really tough situation thatโs coming.
Miller was asked about details of who was hit and it was mentioned how Coloradoโs setup is challenging for fans. He responded:
โItโs hard to control a mad dash of 10 rows that is literally leaping over the bench. I donโt know who got bumped; I just watched the whole thing happen. And guess what, we canโt lose on the road anymore so they wonโt storm the court. Thatโs the solution, right?
โBut Iโm just telling you thereโs a lot of things on a college campus that everybodyโs up in arms about. Iโm watching this and telling you thereโs going to be a situation that happens and theyโll be no turning back when it happens. And it all starts (after not saying) just protect the players, let them off the court. Then weโll move on to Utah and congratulations.โ
The court storming, and Millerโs 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 visitorsโ 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 Wildcatsโ 71-58 loss at Boulder on Feb. 14, 2013, was the toughest because of the logistics.
โIt 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,โ 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, Calโs 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 Coloradoโs Josh Scott, and complimented the Buffsโ big man for it. Scott had 26 points and nine rebounds.
โYou want to see somebody like him, whoโs one of the best players in our conference, down the home stretch of his senior year play his heart out,โ Miller said. โYou 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 wereโฆโ
Arizonaโs 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 wouldnโt 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
