Court storming after college basketball upsets have become quite the costly trend, but Georgia proved on Tuesday night that it’s possible to engage in court storming without hopefully being dealt a hefty fine.
In the final minute of Georgia’s 88-83 upset over No. 3 Florida, the arena’s announcer told the crowd to wait at least 90 seconds before storming the court in order for the Gators and the officials to have time to leave the court. This also gave the Bulldogs some time to celebrate amongst themselves before the crowd filed onto the court.
Bulldogs fans listened politely as they waited patiently in the aisles until given the signal to storm the court. They still got to celebrate accordingly.
🚨Georgia pulls off the upset and beats No. 3 Florida 88-83.
Fans had to wait 1:30 postgame but got the highly anticipated court-storm. pic.twitter.com/Uo1qVhWYz0
— Hank Tatum (@hanktatum4) February 26, 2025
It’s unclear still if the SEC will hand Georgia a fine for court storming regardless of what time it happened, but it was obvious the school’s intention with this request was to avoid the fine. The first offense is worth $100,000 in the conference.
Both Georgia coach Mike White and the players were not aware of the school issuing this request for fans to wait 90 seconds until the announcer made the plea.
“I didn’t know it was coming,” White said after the game. “I leave that to our administration. … I’m sure our players will remember that for the rest of their lives.”
This court storming comes a week after Missouri coach Dennis Gates grabbed the microphone with one second left of their upset win over Alabama to ask the crowd to not storm the court at all. Tigers fans had already stormed the court this season back in December after upsetting rival Kansas, which cost them $250,000. So, a second offense would’ve given Missouri a whopping $500,000 fine.
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