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The Duke basketball team fell on the road against ACC rival Clemson on Saturday night, 77-71. After the win, the home crowd stormed the court.
Jon Scheyer and his staff were seen getting physical with fans as they flooded the floor to celebrate the win. The head coach opened up on that moment in an interview this week.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer was asked today if he thought the ACC should adopt an SEC-like court storming fine system for player safety. Here’s his full response, saying it’s nothing against Clemson MBB/Brad Brownell but Saturday night “wasn’t a safe environment, no question about it” pic.twitter.com/EM1S8k77jw
— Chapel Fowler (@chapelfowler) February 10, 2025
“It was a tough situation,” he said on Monday. “I didn’t want to say anything about it [after the game], because I didn’t want to take anything away from the job that Clemson did. They played a big-time game… That should’ve been the story…
“The officials tried to stop the rush for just a second, just so we could get our players off the court. I think they should rush, but we’ve got to be able to get our players off the court safely. That wasn’t a safe environment…
“I was put in a position where I shielded our guys from people running up and getting in their face. We don’t want something to happen before we make a decision to do something… I’m concerned for our players’ safety.”
Jon Scheyer mentions that he had to get physical with Clemson students that rushed onto the court near his bench. Some of those fans confronted Duke players as they made their way onto the court. The Blue Devils did their best to keep tensions from boiling over.
Duke Head Coach Jon Scheyer and assistants were blocking Clemson fans as they stormed the floor.
They weren’t messing around shoving fans away from their players.
Good on them to protect the players and also grab the players to avoid any injury or fights. #Duke pic.twitter.com/Qkxb75iCVJ
— CHRIS TORELLO 𝕏 (@TorelloSports) February 9, 2025
Duke was able to separate players from crowd members quickly. Scheyer played a big role. It allowed the Blue Devils to leave the court without incident so the Tigers could celebrate the upset win.