I joke about this, but when you watch it at full speed it is really hard for me to blame him for this. The crowd was coming at him at a dead sprint. It is difficult to decide if you maintain your cadence or stop where you are because you don't know what the onrushers are expecting - that is if even he had time to decide anything at all which I seriously doubt. I hate dook with the best of them, but if I am getting rushed by people at a dead sprint I damned well am going to put my forearms out to try to protect myself when they get inside my personal space. Any sane person would, it is a self preservation instinct.
My experience with court rushers was from my time working at Hilton way back when the concrete was still setting. We took pride in stopping anyone from rushing the court. One time the guy next to me grabbed the first guy on the floor and threw him back into the first row of folding chairs on the old bleachers. Everyone else thought better of following his lead. I thought it was maybe a little excessive, but definitely effective. It was a different day back then. Touring security for concerts regularly used the heads of fans to open the back door if they rushed the stage.
I don't have problems with allowing the students the fun of a court storm. I just think it is irresponsible these days to not have methods in place to keep all game participants safe in the process. I think ISU has done a good job of this. This has been a priority in the Big 12 since KSU students pinned Self to the scorers table at the Polygon of Mild Discomfort (dangerous) and Dana complained about his uniformed players in full pads being in danger (weak) during a much less aggressive field rush in JTS.
