Seth Greenberg rips Wake Forest for lack of court-storming preparation after Kyle Filipowski injury

Wake Forest fans had plenty of reasons to celebrate on Saturday as their Demon Deacons knocked off Duke at home. It was an incredible atmosphere in front of the first sold-out crowd at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum since 2017.

Amid the celebration, though, Duke star Kyle Filipowski found himself in the middle of the court-storming and had to be helped off with an injury. Blue Devils coach Jon Scheyer initially said it was an ankle sprain, but Filipowski clarified it was his knee.

Either way, the injury became the biggest talking point of the day. To ESPN’s Seth Greenberg, the blame fell at the feet of Wake Forest officials who were in charge.

“The Wake Forest administration dropped the ball,” Greenberg said at halftime of the North Carolina vs. Virginia game. “You have to have a plan in place. If you’re playing this game and you’re expecting to win, you’ve got to hire extra security, you’ve got to have a plan in place to make sure these players get off the court safely.

“Whether it’s create a blockade with your security so the students on both ends can’t get on the court. But you’ve got to have something in place.”

Before he worked at ESPN, Greenberg was the head coach at Virginia Tech from 2003-12. He recalled an example from his penultimate season at the helm – appropriately, against Duke – to illustrate what he thinks administrations should do to protect players and fans when court-stormings happen.

“We played Duke – College GameDay game, my next-to-last year. Fortunate enough to win,” Greenberg said. “The day before, there was a full plan and a meeting where they had exactly what was going to happen. ‘If we’re fortunate enough to win this game, X, Y and Z.’ And you know what? Virginia Tech executed it absolutely perfectly.

“Wake Forest and their administration, shame on you because you should’ve had something in place to make sure – most important thing, the security of the visiting team. End of story.”

The final buzzer had just sounded when fans came down from the stands toward center court to celebrate one of the biggest victories in the Steve Forbes era. However, because Wake Forest led for the final six minutes of the game, Seth Greenberg argued the public address announcer had the ability to let fans know they needed to stay in their seats until the players cleared the court.

While breaking down a new angle of the incident, Greenberg pointed out some more flaws with the security, as well.

“You had time to make an announcement to the students. You had all kinds of things that you should’ve had in place. … Tell me how many security guards you see even after the incident begins,” Greenberg said. “You only see three or four security guards. You see any of those yellow shirts? … To me, Wake Forest was ill-equipped to make sure that those Duke players got off the court safely and exited the arena. And that is their responsibility.”