Arizona State Sun Devils Must Address Ugly Fan Behavior After Win

herb sendeck — Rick Scuteri – USA TODAY Sports

The Arizona State Sun Devils earned a hard-fought 74-72 win over the Oregon Ducks on Saturday night to improve to 7-4 in Pac-12 play and sole possession of third place in the conference standings. But the talk today from the game isn’t about big-man Jordan Bachynski or his 26 points against the Ducks. Instead, ASU is having to deal with allegations of some very ugly behavior from their home crowd.

According to Oregon head coach Dana Altman, visiting teams face an unsafe environment when they have to walk past the ASU student section at halftime and after the game. Assistant coach Brian Fish and trainer Clay Jamieson reported that they were spit on by an ASU student as they left the floor at halftime. The incident was reported to security, though no charges were pressed, and the school confirmed that the student was removed from the game and had his season tickets revoked.

There is a pretty clear line between giving your team a home-court advantage and being an outright jerk, and this Arizona State student clearly jumped over the line by a mile. This ugly incident takes away the focus from an ASU team that is playing good basketball right now, winning five of their last six games with the No. 2 Arizona Wildcats next up on the schedule in Tempe. While the team would love for their crowd to be raucous and disruptive for the Cats, the school will clearly have to implement some added measures to control the crowd after the incident with the Ducks.

While it is easy to get swept up in the emotion of a game while cheering on your school, take a moment to remember one simple rule to make sure you don’t ruin the good time for yourself and everyone around you: Don’t be a jerk.

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