{"id":456458,"date":"2026-02-08T13:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T13:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456458\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T13:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T13:55:09","slug":"dukes-scheyer-says-staff-members-got-punched-in-the-face-during-court-storming-unc-ad-apologizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456458\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke’s Scheyer says staff members ‘got punched in the face’ during court-storming; UNC AD apologizes"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Duke coach Jon Scheyer said he had staff members \u201cthat got punched in the face\u201d as North Carolina fans stormed the court to celebrate a late winning shot in the famed rivalry Saturday night<\/a>, prompting UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham to publicly apologize.<\/p>\n

The 14th-ranked Tar Heels stunned the fourth-ranked Blue Devils 71-68 on Seth Trimble\u2019s 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left, a shot that originally appeared to come as time expired and had jubilant fans rush the court in a chaotic celebration. Officials reviewed the play and determined time was left, so fans had to be cleared for Duke to get one final play before storming the court again when the clock officially hit zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it\u2019s hard to talk about the game when I was most concerned just for the safety of our players after the game,\u201d Scheyer said in his opening statement. \u201cI don\u2019t want to make it about that, because Carolina, they played a great game to win. And that\u2019s a heartbreaking loss for our team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got staff members that got punched in the face. My family, pushing people away, trying to not get trampled. That\u2019s not what this game is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterward, Cunningham said he apologized to Scheyer before he came in for this postgame news conference and referenced someone being injured. He didn\u2019t have details on who was injured or how. In a text message to The Associated Press and other outlets, program spokesman Kyle Serba said one person tied to the program had been injured but offered no additional details, citing the individual\u2019s privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they rushed the court, a number of people got knocked over,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cBut then we had to clear the court again. So when we normally have something like just rushing the court and the game is over, we do have a line by the benches to get people off safely.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, if somebody got injured, that\u2019s just really, really disappointing. We\u2019ll do the best we can to make sure that doesn\u2019t happen, but again, my apologies to Duke for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cunningham said the school would look at video replays to determine exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

The safety of players and team staffers during court stormings has been a long-running topic of concern in college athletics. That included roughly two years ago after Duke\u2019s loss at Wake Forest<\/a>, when Blue Devils player Kyle Filipowski was shaken up after a Demon Deacons fan collided with him, while Jared McCain\u2019s exit to the tunnel was briefly blocked by a Wake Forest fan. Filipowski had his right leg wrapped in plastic to fasten an icebag to his kneecap afterward.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of that 2024 incident, Scheyer asked: \u201cWhen are we going to ban court-storming?\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked Saturday night if he still feels court-storming should be banned, Scheyer said: \u201cI think court-storming is fine, I don\u2019t have any issue with court-storming. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust shouldn\u2019t have people getting punched in the face. Shouldn\u2019t put our players in position where they\u2019re face-to-face with people who can do anything at that time. It just takes one reaction. Even today, I had to push people away just to try to protect our players. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey won, they should celebrate,\u201d Scheyer added. \u201cThey want to court-storm, court-storm. But just let\u2019s get our guys off safely, that\u2019s it. That\u2019s where I\u2019m at with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Duke coach Jon Scheyer said he had staff members \u201cthat got punched in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[402,213371,4044,2662,7091,60517,22268,26701,213372,2663,3508,2256,7027,200479,147724,99,3679],"class_list":["post-456458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-bubba-cunningham","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-jared-mccain","tag-jon-scheyer","tag-kyle-filipowski","tag-kyle-serba","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-north-carolina","tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-seth-trimble","tag-sports","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}