It may be a little early for most of the nation to be paying attention to college basketball, but one of the great early season success stories are the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
On Friday night, undefeated 13th ranked Nebraska defeated 9th ranked Michigan State 58-56. After the game, the Cornhuskers fans did something that has become hotly debated in recent years – they stormed the court to celebrate the victory.
Court storming has become polarizing in recent years. Some conferences are dishing out heavy fines to stop the behavior. Jay Bilas has even said that students who stormed the court should be arrested after Duke star Kyle Filipowski suffered a sprained ankle after a Wake Forest upset.
But after being on the receiving end of it, Spartans head coach Tom Izzo had no issues with the way Nebraska fans celebrated on Friday night. In fact, he was supportive of it in his postgame press conference.
“I understand we gotta be careful and all that, I absolutely loved it. I absolutely loved it,” Izzo said. “If there’s that much passion that they storm the court.”
Izzo jokingly added, “I was hoping I got stomped on to be honest with you.”
Nebraska is the only power four program to never win an NCAA Tournament game. In honor of Stranger Things, we must be living in the upside down if Indiana is a football school and Nebraska is a basketball school. But because of that history, Tom Izzo understands why the victory over Michigan State to continue their undefeated start was so special for the Husker faithful.
“That doesn’t happen much at our place. And it shouldn’t. But it should happen here. This is kind of a new experience. That’s the beauty of what you do as you build a program… They were lining up back there, I was thinking to myself ‘go for it.’ I thought it was great. And I think it’s somehow probably a backhanded compliment to us. If we were a nobody they wouldn’t have stormed the court,” Izzo stated.
And in what may be a sign of Nebraska trying to become a program like Michigan State, Huskers senior Jamarques Lawrence said fans shouldn’t storm the court anymore because they are supposed to win these games now.
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