Rush The Court

It was very surprising to see so much criticism directed at Roy Williams for having the North Carolina bench depart to the locker room before the buzzer at the end of Saturday’s Florida State game. There are a lot of things to criticize about North Carolina’s performance, but this simply isn’t one of them. Despite Leonard Hamilton making it abundantly clear that North Carolina went to the locker room early at his urging, Internet commenters have been quick to throw around “bad sport” and “sore loser” labels. This is silly. Williams gracefully accepted Hamilton’s suggestion and the bulk of the North Carolina staff and players were able to exit the area without incident. Somehow, this has been interpreted as a disservice to the remaining North Carolina players who were left to face the rushed-court alone. Of course, this is patently ridiculous. In situations where a rush is imminent, off-duty police officers and event security staff generally have the responsibility of making sure that the visiting team is safely escorted to the locker room without incident. Generally, there aren’t enough of these staffers to adequately escort the entire team’s staff. By limiting the number of folks who needed escort to the five remaining North Carolina players, the security staff had a much more manageable, though still difficult task (the players left on the court still got bumped and pushed by over-exuberant and misguided Seminole fans). The move seemed sensible, safe, and agreed upon by both teams. It allowed for a safer rush. What’s wrong with this?

At the “neutral” site loss to UNLV, the court was rushed by excited Runnin’ Rebels fans, an undeniably exciting moment that was somewhat marred by a few boisterous fans knocking over members of UNC’s training staff. If you were Williams and you saw a way to avoid a repeat of a similar incident offered by your opponent’s coach, wouldn’t you take it? It was an odd thing to see, but all things considered it feels like the right and mature move by the leaders of both teams. The worst part about this little incident is how it takes the spotlight away from the impressiveness of Florida State’s thorough domination of the Tar Heels. It just seems odd to me that there’s so much to-do over how North Carolina left Tallahassee and not enough talk about how the team never even bothered to show up in the first place.