Report: Duke forward Kyle Filipowski expected to play vs. Louisville after court storming injury

In a positive turn of events for Duke, reports are out that Blue Devil big man Kyle Filipowski won’t miss time and will play in the team’s Wednesday night home game vs. Louisville.

Here was that news as tweeted out by Adam Zagoria a few hours ahead of the game: “Kyle Filipowski is expected to play tonight for Duke, per source.”

Of course, Filipowski was injured in the Court Storming Heard ‘Round The Country, fighting his way off of Wake Forest’s court amid a sea of Screamin’ Decon fans after the Duke loss when he was struck on accident by a fan with the two appearing to bump knees. Filipowski was swarmed by Duke staff and coaches and eventually ushered off the court.

Now, several days and one million court storming takes later, all has ended up well and Filipowski will miss a grand total of zero games due to the injury suffered after the loss. Crisis avoided for Duke with March just days away.

The court storming incidents involving both Filipowski and Iowa women’s superstar Caitlin Clark have really sparked new discussion on the topic. Many college hoops analysts and ESPN talking heads came to the conclusion that perhaps it is time to end the age-old tradition of students and fans gathering on the court with their team after big home wins.

But the suggestions for how to do so were wide-ranging and ambitious, sometimes downright absurd. Jay Bilas would like to see every court stormer detained and imprisoned, at the very least fined, for violating a sanctity of the court that he believes belongs only to coaches, players and referees. Another CBB broadcaster, Jimmy Dykes, called for a $500,000 fine followed by a whole million for a second offense to motivate the schools to get this problem under control.

However, when you look at Clark and now Filipowski, these were incidents that involved very minor injuries that didn’t keep either player off the court for even one game. To call them injuries is maybe even a stretch considering how quickly both stars were okay. And still, there’s really yet to be a major injury to stem from court-storming.

Can it be done better, safer for the other team? Sure. But by no means is court storming constantly putting participants of the games in peril. A court storm, by nature, is a rarity as it is, and injuries, are even rarer, especially ones of any severity.