Thursday Thinker the Third

This week, I'm going to ask you about a very controversial topic. It's one so sensitive, I almost hesitate to offer this question, but I'm very curious, and have to know.

Here it is (don't judge me): Is there an inappropriate time for students to storm the field/court?

My personal opinion is that in general, if students want to storm, they are correct in doing so. There are times I wouldn't say it's a good decision (for instance, fans of the current #1 team should not rush unless the outcome is world-altering in some way), but for the most part, I support it.

I understand some of the arguments against rushing. It can be a safety hazard if people are doing it recklessly. It has led to on-court/field incidents, though thankfully not too many. And it can lead to some bad blood between the schools (one need look no farther than IU-Kentucky). However, as long as students can behave themselves while expressing their joy, court rushing can be very fun and very safe.

The arguments that specify when certain teams and schools should be allowed to rush, on the other hand, tend to be more based on "Well, our school has done X, Y, and Z things of historical note, and because of that we're too good to storm the floor." I call BS on that. Especially to the people who try to use banners to justify why court rushing at certain schools should never be a thing (the blue bloods argument). Look, no basketball program in recent memory has ever had to pull itself out of a hole like Indiana did following the Kelvin Sampson era, but the fact that a scenario like this happened once suggests it could happen somewhere else again. If a "blue blood" program is coming off a rough stretch, and gets a big win over a #1 ranked team, or a hated rival, or both, they should always be allowed to rush. Period. If Duke went through a period where they won less than 20 total basketball games, and then beat North Carolina at Cameron Indoor, do you think the Crazies might storm? I think there's a nonzero chance that happens. Hell, UNC apparently already did the reverse this past season, and I never heard a word about it around here.

You can make that same argument for pretty much any team. I will again concede that not all scenarios are created equal, and some court rushes would look much worse than others, but on the whole, if you want to tell college kids that they're celebrating something wrong, you've probably either never been to college, have forgotten your own college years, or just plain hate seeing people have fun. I am proud to say I ended up on McCracken Court after we beat Kentucky in 2011, and if that game ended the same way 10 more times, I would rush all 10 of those times. If I was still a student and had been in Assembly Hall when we beat Wisconsin this season, I would have joined that rush as well. It's fun. Deal with it. /rant

Right, in case you lost the question in there somewhere, here it is one more time: Is there an inappropriate time for students to storm the field/court? I eagerly await your flames.