Morgantown Monday Mania

Wottup with Jamari Traylor

Thought you’d like to know...

Governor’s comment contains the actual punishments the B12 laid on.

Got to disagree about player throwing a punch in any circumstance. Should always be a least a 1 game suspension, maybe more depending on the circumstance. In this case guy might have felt threatened but the video shows him as the aggressor, fan only jostled him. Nothing at all like the body slam Jamari Traylor walked away from at KSU.

I agree except for the punch thrower getting off with a reprimand. Unless it’s clearly in self defense, I think there should be a 1 game suspension minimum every time a highly conditioned athlete throws a punch at a fan, whether said punch lands or not. It is my understanding that a fan video of the storming does not give the player a self defense alibi. I have not seen the video myself, so if anyone has and believes differently, I’m willing to revise my position.

JR - I just watched the video linked on the KUSports.com site.

The TT security team was trying to keep between the crowd and the WVU players, who were still at their bench. Wesley Harris somehow slipped passed the security people to be right at the edge of the crowd. It looks as if he turned to return to the bench when he was apparently unintentionally bumped into by a fan who was trying to get to the center mass on the court (at least that's how it looked to me, I've experienced worse in an AFH hallway from a fan not paying attention where he was going). Harris then turned and hit the fan, after which the security guys and his teammates pulled him away from the crowd.

Still disagee with you, NotO. Guess we aren't going to see eye to eye on this one.

For one thing, the football analogy is not a valid one, as the incidents I recall over the years occurred during games, and as one time Pro Bowl middle linebacker for the Baltimore Colts Mike Curtis one said, they step on the field and they have willingly entered the game, which, of course, includes getting knocked to the ground. Like you, I enjoyed that annihilation very much (and the guy was a Colts fan, but he did not belong on the field during the game). I do seem to recall an Oregon or UW player getting punished for hitting a fan after a loss a few years ago, but then, he was punished.

Having said all that, I don't disagree with you about fans should not be on the court, even after a game. And apparently so does the conference, given the punishment to TT for not having adequate controls in place to prevent court storming.

But limiting the player punishment to a reprimand is less than meaningless, and sends no message at all to any player except that they can get away with it. The security team tried to keep the players and fans separate, and yet there he was out by the fans. He put himself in that position. Fan brushes him and he retaliates with a roundhouse swing? These are very strong, well conditioned young men, he could really have hurt that fan. (One of my worst memories is seeing the carnage of a face torn apart in a fight). Whether it landed or not, he needed to sit a game to show that there are consequences for such behavior, and to send a real message to the rest of the players in the conference that such behavior will not be tolerated.