Duke Star Injured When Wake Forest Fans Storm Court After Upset Win

Wake Forest‘s Demon Deacons’ took a 83-79 upset victory over the No. 8 Duke Blue Devils Saturday afternoon, but the big story came after the final buzzer.

Fans stormed the court, and Duke star Kyle Filipowski was knocked down and sprained an ankle. He had to be helped off the court. Filipowski led his team with 17 points in the game and is averaging 16.9 and 8.2 rebounds per game this year.

Filipowski said later he thought the collision was intentional.

“It’s just really ridiculous how that situation is handled,” Filipowski told WFMY News after the game. “I absolutely feel like it was personal. Intentional for sure. Like I said, there’s no reason where they see a big guy like me trying to work my way off the court and they they can’t just work around me, you know? There’s no excuse for that.”

The fan who appeared to hit Filipowski fell to the court.

Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said Filipowski sprained his ankle, and the coach called for court storming to end.

“When are we going to ban court storming? When are we going to ban that? How many times does a player have to get into something where they get punched, or they get pushed, or they get taunted right in their face? It’s a dangerous thing.”

Last month, Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark was run into by a fan.

Some conferences have instituted fines to member schools for court storming. But the ACC, where Duke and Wake Forest play, has no such penalty.