Court order

South Carolina's upset of Kentucky last week was the first Gamecocks win over a No. 1 team in more than 100 years of playing basketball.

It also marked the ninth time the Southeastern Conference's policy against fans storming the floor or playing field has been violated and resulted in a fine. The SEC docked South Carolina $25,000 for its second infraction of a rule instituted in December 2004.

South Carolina drew a $5,000 first-offense fine after a 2005 win over No. 3 Kentucky.

"The number of times in which fans have stormed the court has dropped in recent years, and I think that's in part because of the policy," SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom said. "We never want to fine an institution, and a large part of the reason behind the policy is so institutions can take proactive measures to stop it before it happens."

Six of the nine violations have occurred in basketball. The other three took place in football, specifically Commonwealth Stadium following Kentucky wins over Georgia, Louisville and LSU during the 2006-07 seasons.

Kentucky's third offense resulted in the maximum $50,000 fine.

The SEC's athletic directors shaped the policy after a sportsmanship summit in Dallas in 2003. Its lesser-known measures include forbidding teams to come back for curtain calls and limiting the numbers of songs that bands can play after games.

Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan believes the policy is needed.

"When people look at the storming of the floor from a television perspective, it always looks like a great thing," Donovan said. "The unfortunate part of that is there is not a consideration for the emotional things that go on with the kids who lost that game. As a coach or as a player, you can constantly hear the heckling from the fans. That's a part of sports, but during the storming of the floor, people are running by and screaming things in players' faces.

"If you have a situation where a kid loses his cool because it's an emotional game and people are on the floor and someone bumps into him or screams something directly in his face, if a kid hauls off and punches somebody and a fight breaks out, that student-athlete is the one held accountable in a lot of ways."

South Carolina guard Devan Downey added to the likelihood of last week's floor rush by motioning for fans to make their way down. The State newspaper in Columbia reported there was a brief incident between a Gamecocks fan and Kentucky freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins.

"To beat the No. 1 team in the country, you want to remember that moment in a special way," Downey told the paper. "So, yeah, I told them to run on to the court."

South Carolina athletic director Eric Hyman issued a statement in which he praised the atmosphere but pointed out that SEC schools voted unanimously on the sportsmanship policy and that the university supported it fully.

Donovan would love the league to implement a rule allowing victorious fans to storm the floor once the losing team had time to exit. The spontaneity of the moment would lessen by such a change, and there is that matter of league ADs passing it.

"Any of our rules can be brought up by our schools to be looked at and altered," Bloom said. "We haven't seen any action amongst our schools that would tell us to look at the policy and change it."