NCAA Nonsense

Chartering flights is a nice luxury for college basketball teams.

Not quite so nice when you get delayed.

Utah State left Tuesday for Spokane and its first-round NCAA Tournament match-up against Texas A&M. The team chartered a flight from Salt Lake’s executive airport.

Trouble was, there was a hold-up. The Aggie flight was not allowed to take off until airline traffic had cleared in Spokane. It took about 1 hours for the flight to finally take off.

Still, if you figure it took 1 hours to drive to Salt Lake and another two hours, counting boarding time, etc., to get off the ground, 1 1/2 hours to Spokane, and another half hour to drive to the hotel, flying isn’t as much advantage as it might seem.

Other than the fatigue factor that sets in when you drive or fly commercial.

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I loved the quote by sophomore guard Jaxon Mayer when asked about preparing for the tournament.
“Last year we got the jitters out by coming to this tournament. We have a lot of guys back, so we’re kind of itching through all the nonsense and just trying to focus on the game so we can win a game this year,” he said.
“Nonsense” being all the media requests, public appearances, getting tickets for relatives, etc.
It’s not a new concern, but it’s definitely a fresh way to describe it.