It was definitely in the heat of the moment. It started with about three or four people on the left side of the student section. It was the guys that dress up as Reeves Nelson and run the fan page. I am definitely not in support of rushing the court. In fact The Den officially is against rushing the court.

Naturally, it’s about Abdul-Hamid’s final shot. http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncb/columns/story?id=4848108

I found it interesting when she writes…

“OK, back to the list of how exactly we got into this discussion in the first place:

At some point on Thursday night Howland realized that starting forward Nikola Dragovic had to be lifted for a defensive replacement at the end of the game.

Like most of the Bruins opponents this season, Washington is just more athletic than UCLA and Howland wasn’t about to lose a one-point lead with seven seconds to go because somebody got by Dragovic.

So after a Washington timeout, he pulled his slow-footed Serbian and put Abdul-Hamid in."

Either she went to UCLA and follows BN, or maybe it is just that obvious to anybody watching that Drago is just a terrible player. Interesting, though, that CBH was finally willing to pull him. It seemed this game that Howland was taking a bunch of firsts, including trusting this team to play zone D.

Mr. Brennan describes a paradox.

Rushing the court, to me, is by its very nature a spontaneous act. The moment one plans for it or considers it in advance, one creates an utterly contrived occurrence and renders any value rushing the court — if there is a value — moot. The very notion that there should be a set of rules governing what should by definition be a spur-of-the-moment event strikes me as, quite frankly, a bit ridiculous.

My feeling is that the team, made up of players, belongs mostly to the students. Those are their peers on the court, their friends and classmates playing the game. If they choose to run out on the court to embrace one of their own, a fellow student who just so happens to embody a particularly joyous collegiate sports archetype (the hard working walk-on who finally gets his one moment to shine) then so be it. As an alumnus from the distant past, I feel I have no more right to tell today’s students how to celebrate than I do trying to convince them that the classic rock of the 70s I grew up listening to is more culturally important than the hip hop or pop that defines their generation.

When Mustafa Abdul-Hamid hit that shot I swear I literally jumped up off my coach and ran part way across my living room. Had I been in the front row at Pauley, I probably would have run half way across the court myself.

I realize my opinion is in the minority. Even as I’m writing this I see new posts joining this thread that echo the comments of the “OP.” That’s fine. I don’t care. I wanted to express my opinion anyway.

My message to the current students is this: Enjoy your time at UCLA. Have fun and don’t let the “remember when we were great” crowd inhibit your good time. If you don’t want to rush the court, that’s fine — but don’t rush it because you don’t want to rush it, not because of someone else’s sense of nostalgia.

Now — let me have it with both barrels. I can take it.

i would bet that, looking back on it, the majority of students in the Den last night wouldn’t think that the moment was worthy of storming the court. However, in the heat of the moment all you want to do after a buzzer beater is mob the guy who made it. I don’t think there’s any way it would’ve happened had Overton missed and we won the game on Roll’s FT’s.

It doesn’t excuse it, but fans are fans for a reason. They lose perspective in the heat of the moment. I can honestly say that for the last 3 seconds and a few seconds immediately afterwards, I wasn’t thinking about our crappy record. I was just thrilled about the win.

that it was on an improbable buzzer-beater by a walk-on… something that Mr. Brennan either didn’t know (which might be true from reading his post) or conveniently didn’t mention. No way anyone rushes the court if we had won on a defensive stop. Plus, all postseason implications aside, this was purely the most exciting game at Pauley since I’ve been here. Just a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

This was never about preventing the student section from celebrating an exciting win, or “silencing” those who want to cheer our team during a season that has given us so little to cheer about thus far.

Pauley Pavilion should always be raucous, jubilant, and rowdy, a place where opposing teams can sense the support that’s coming from the stands. That’s the essence of the home court advantage.

It’s not even necessarily an issue of showing respect for Coach’s program, although I contend that rushing the court in most instances does belittle, to varying degrees, the accomplishments of Wooden, Alcindor, Walton, etc.

But that’s not why I’m opposed to the students doing it. To rush the court, especially after a fun but lackluster win against a mediocre opponent, ultimately lowers the bar that was set by Wooden, Alcindor and Walton. It says our standards have changed. In a subtle way, it validates the message that Linda Lavin was trying to shove down our throats during the dark years of Alice’s reign that a rewarding, satisfying season ends with an 80-56 loss to Iowa State.

What’s next, cutting down the nets? Banners for winning the conference? Setting up a stage mid-court post-game and doing interviews with Brent Musberger? Where do you draw the line?

Okay, I’m being facetious, yes. But the point is that we have standards that need to be upheld at UCLA, and one of them is knowing the difference between getting a fun, exciting, much-needed win (like last night) and achieving a goal that’s really worthy of celebration at Pauley Pavilion (like saying goodbye and thanks to Ed O’Bannon).

There were no ticker-tape parades for the returning heroes of the Grenada invasion, and likewise, we should not shower confetti or rush the court for beating a bad road team on our home floor and raising our record to 8-10.

So please, students of the Den and others, put it all in perspective and save it for when it counts. Pauley Pavilion should be loudest venue on the west coast. When we win on a last-second shot, the stands should be rocking. Scream, yell, mosh, wear your colors and costumes, jeer and deride the visiting team, and give UCLA every advantage needed for a home court win.

Just don’t rush the court. Thanks.

I have listed them here: http://ranjeremysports.blogspot.com/2010/01/rush-court-sometimes-not-always.html

(Nestor, if you do not want me to link it up like this, let me know)

But I would of totally loved to rush the court. I know Washington isn’t very good, but it was a buzzer-beater to win the game, at a time when your Basketball program is down, I thought it was a great situation too. Like Achilles said above, it’s a very spontaneous act. If your overwhelmed with emotion, and you want to celebrate the win with your friends and players on the court, why not? And to have a set of rules for it is also ridiculous.

I’m just an Oregon State fan, and will probably never know what it feels like to have the kind of sucess your program has. But I would of rushed.

I thought it was impressive that the K-State fans did not rush the court when they knocked off Texas Monday night. It was a statement, in and of itself.

That being said, I don’t think UCLA students should be criticized—especially by Brennan—for showing their enthusiasm, especially on their home court. I would prefer to see that then a “ho-hum,” “expect-all-wins, all-the-time-and-walk-out-on-them-when-they-don’t” attitude, any day.