Throughout a three-decade career as a prominent ESPN play-by-play broadcaster, Dave Pasch says he has been on the mic for two college basketball games that ended in a court-storming. One occurred earlier this month as unranked LSU upset Kentucky as time expired at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La. Pasch recalled this week a conversation he and analyst Jay Williams had with an LSU athletics department staffer prior to the game.
“We asked, if they beat Kentucky, will they storm the court?” Pasch said. “He was like, ‘Nope, we don’t storm the court here. We’ve beaten Kentucky before.’ Well, they won on this crazy, last-second shot and, of course, they stormed the floor.”
In the game’s final sequence, you can clearly hear Williams say, “Didn’t we talk today about if LSU has the right protocol in place for a court storm?” as ESPN’s cameras aired a wide shot of LSU fans spilling onto the court.
The issue of court-storming went national this week after Wake Forest fans ran onto the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum floor following a win over Duke on Saturday. Cameras picked up video of multiple fans making contact with Duke star Kyle Filipowski, who ended up limping off the court, prompting Duke coach Jon Scheyer, fuming in a postgame…
