The Duke basketball team suffered its first loss of the conference season on Saturday afternoon against the Clemson Tigers and the sold out crowd predicably stormed the court after the final buzzer sounded.
However, it came with some controversy as Clemson students made their way towards the Blue Devil players as the celebration ensured at midcourt.
“It was a tough situation,” Scheyer said on the ACC teleconference on Monday.
“It’s crossing my mind at the end of the game about trying to make sure our players are safe, and that shouldn’t be my responsibility in that moment.”
Duke trailed by six, 77-71, with 5.3 seconds remaining as Cooper Flagg missed a 3-pointer that could have cut the game to one possession in the final seconds. Scheyer said that is what his focus should be on.
“That wasn’t a safe environment, no question about it,” Scheyer continued. “I was put in position where I was shielding our guys from people running up and getting in their face.”
Scheyer mentioned that he didn’t want to make a big deal about the incident after the game and take away from with the Tigers and head coach Brad Brownell were able to do in the game.
“Clemson, man they played a big time game. Big time win and that should’ve been the story,” he added. “They should rush. Court storming and all that, just we have to get our players off the court more safely.”
No. 3 Duke (20-3, 12-1 ACC) returns home to face two of the newest members of the ACC this week, California (12-12, 5-8 ACC) on Wednesday night (9:00 p.m. ET, ACC Network) and Stanford (16-8, 8-5 ACC) on Saturday afternoon (4:00 p.m. ET, ABC)
