Richard Jefferson criticized his ESPN colleague's take on the field assault after Jay Bilas suggested that those who enter the field to celebrate unexpected victories should be arrested for the action.
Jefferson, who played several years in the NBA after a standout college career with Arizona, discussed Bilas' opinion on ESPN's “NBA Today.”
“That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life…” Jefferson said Monday. “Did he say to arrest 10,000 people? Did he say to give citations to 10,000 people?”
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Wake Forest Demon Deacons fans storm the court after a win over the Duke Blue Devils at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum on February 24, 2024 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Jefferson said the court has attacked him several times as a player, and “it sucks.”
“But this is about college basketball, this is about college football. To say the least, and I love Jay Bilas, a legend in this game, it's foolish to suggest that,” he continued. “Because to me, when you look at this, yeah, take your players off the field… But this is part of college sports, it always has been, why? Forty years? Fifty years?”
“You know what? Even in football. You're going to stop all the people from running on the field when Alabama loses to Florida A&M? No, you're not going to stop it. You figured out a way to protect your players. Again, we're talking of one situation, two situations in the course of how many judicial invasions?
“We get it. But let's not get old and say 'Get off my lawn, get a citation, let's arrest them all.'” Do we know what we're talking about when we say these things?”
Jefferson said that if fans would pay his tuition and come support his team in an underdog situation against a blue blood like Duke, Arizona, Kansas or Kentucky, then “Look, you deserve to storm the field.”
Bilas floated his idea early Monday.
Kendall Moriarty, number 15 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, celebrates with his teammates and fans on the court after the victory against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Pinnacle Bank Arena on February 11, 2024 in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Steven Branscombe/Getty Images)
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“The truth is, nothing is going to change now,” he said on “First Take.” “We're going to talk about it. It's going to disappear and nothing is going to change. And if they wanted to stop it, they could stop it tomorrow. Administrations will tell you that security experts will tell them that it's not a good idea to try to stop the assault on the courts, because that could cause more problems than it would solve.
“But you don't have to stop the assault on the court. Once, all you have to do is, once they're on the court, don't let them out. Just say, 'They're all under arrest,' and 'Give them all the summonses,' or arrest them if you want. And then the assaults on the courts will stop the next day.”
Bilas then suggested that the media was complicit in the assault on the court.
Richard Jefferson, left, responded to Jay Bilas' view on storming the courts. (Getty Images)
“Years ago, when fans would run onto the field or court during a game, it was network policy not to show it because we didn't want to encourage it. So what does that say about the way we media use these images now? No. we can deny that we encourage it or at least tacitly approve of it.
“Everyone has to accept some responsibility for this. I don't think it's right to allow this, but I know it's going to continue. This isn't going to stop.”
Duke star Kyle Filipowski had to be helped off the court after Saturday's incident.
Apparently a fan made contact with him running from the left side of the field. The fan who appeared to hit Filipowski fell to the court and Filipowski somehow ended up in the arms of the Duke staff.
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The incident sparked the latest talk of assaulting the courts.
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