Duke coach Jon Scheyer said staff member punched during North Carolina court storm is doing better

The Duke basketball staff member that was caught up in the court storm at the Dean Smith Center on Saturday night is doing much better, Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer said on Monday.

No. 11 North Carolina rallied from a 13-point hole on Saturday to stun No. 4 Duke 71-68 in the latest edition of the ACC rivalry matchup. Naturally, Tar Heels fans rushed their home court to celebrate.

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But Scheyer revealed after the game that one of his staff members was punched in the face during the frenzy.

“I came back in the locker room and I see he’s got a bloody lip and he’s disheveled and he didn’t know what happened,” Scheyer said on Monday. “He got trampled on the floor. That was my main concern after the game and that’s why I said what I said.”

While it’s unclear who the staff member is, Scheyer said he was the only person injured in the chaos. And, now days later, he is doing fine.

“It was not a good situation,” Scheyer said. “But he’s doing better, he’s fine. Ready to move on. I don’t have anything more to say other than, that was a very unsafe situation for him, our staff, our families, our players.”

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There were actually two court storms on Saturday, one with 0.4 seconds left on the clock and then another after officials cleared the court and finished out the game.

The ACC fined North Carolina $50,000 for the court storm on Sunday, as it was a violation of the league’s “event security policy.”

North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said after the game that he had apologized to Scheyer personally.

“Obviously if somebody got injured, that’s just really, really disappointing,” Cunningham said. “We’ll do the best we can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but again, my apologies to Duke for that.”

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While there have been several attempts to adjust or prevent court storming all together in recent years, Scheyer insisted on Saturday that he didn’t want the celebration banned.

“I don’t have any issue with court storming,” he said. “Just shouldn’t have people getting punched in the face. Shouldn’t put our players in position where they’re 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.”

The win for North Carolina marked its largest comeback victory over Duke in the last 25 years. It snapped a 10-game win streak for the Blue Devils, and moved the Tar Heels up three spots in the latest Associated Press poll on Monday.

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Duke and North Carolina will square off again on March 7 in the last game of the regular season, this time at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“I’m a big boy, we can take losing,” Scheyer said on Monday. “Great college game, Carolina played great.”