Coach K wants fans to make room before storming court

The Duke Blue Devils suffered an upset 73-68 road loss to an unranked Virginia team Thursday and — after the No. 3-ranked team bit the dust on the Charlottesville court— fans swarmed the hardwood and made it difficult for Coach Mike Krzyzewski's  players to hit the locker room.

After the pandemonium on the ACC rival's court subsided and the Blue Devils team was safely tucked away, Coach K shared his safety concerns for his players after dodging rampaging Cavalier fans on the court.

"Whatever you're doing, you need to get the team off first," Krzyzewski said at his presser. "Look, celebrate, have fun, obviously you won, that's cool. Just get our team off the court and our coaching staff before students come on.

"Look do you know how close you are to, just put yourself in the position of one of our players or coaches. I'm not saying any fan did this, but the potential is there all the time for a fan to just go up to you and say, 'Coach you're a ... ' or push you or hit you. And what do you do? What if you did something? That would be the story. We deserve that type of protection."

This isn't the first time Krzyzewski has been critical of student running amok on the court after beating  Duke. Miami's 90-63 rout of the top-ranked Blue Devils on Jan. 23 led to mad rush off the court and a Maryland loss in College Park was another bum-and-grind to the visitor's locker room.

Krzyzewski's comment were not meant to overshadow the effort of the Virginia team and the exuberance of the fans.

"I don't want to demean the game with this," he said. "They played great. Harris was unbelievable. That's the story of the game."

And it's not like Coach K doesn't want the same sort of crowd control in his own backyard.  Following Duke's victory over rival North Carolina on Feb. 13, the revered coach held back the tide of Cameron Crazies with a simple wave of his arms — and they obeyed.

Nobody enjoys seeing Duke players walk off the court with bowed heads better than an ACC rival and even Krzyzewski understands opposong fans' unabashed joy when their team lays out one of his Blue Devils teams.

"Again, congratulations to them, and they should have fun and burn benches and do all that stuff," he quipped at the end of his press conference. "I'm all for that."

Just let them leave.