WICHITA, Kan. -
Add another tale to Bob Huggins' long list of adventures as
a collegiate basketball coach.
On Wednesday night, as Huggins and the WVU men's basketball
team were preparing to travel to Wichita, Kan. to take on his former assistant
Frank Martin and the Kansas State Wildcats, they ran into a flight delay that
completely threw off their schedule.
Both K-State and WVU booked rooms at the Hyatt in downtown
Wichita. Both teams were supposed to eat a private dinner in the Riverview
Ballroom. Only the Wildcats' meal went off as planned.
While waiting to speak with Coach Martin at Hyatt for The
Bob Huggins Show, hotel staff informed us that the Mountaineers' 10 p.m. dinner
had been canceled because the team was experiencing a flight delay.
Consider that in itself for a moment. The Wildcats were set
to finish practice at the nearby Intrust Bank Arena, site of Thursday's game,
at 6 p.m. and head over to eat their dinner. West Virginia had plans a full
four hours later and had to tell the staff to pack up some doggy bags.
Martin arrived for the interview and said he had spoken with
Huggins, who informed him their plane was stuck in Minneapolis and the team
still was unsure when it would depart from Clarksburg.
In this conversation, Huggins and Martin each shared their
thoughts on the day's practice and Martin expressed his concern that the
offensive ineptitude that would exist Thursday could lead to a scoreless tie.
Various staff members took to Twitter throughout the night
to inform anyone who cared to follow their travels of just how delayed they had
gotten. When their plane finally arrived, they were told it had hit a bird
(moment of silence, please) and a crew needed to check the engine prior to
boarding.
At around 11 p.m. local time, the team boarded the plane. Then
it waited another hour before taking off.
The charter flight landed safely in the 2 a.m. hour – keep
in mind, this is 3 a.m. to the Mountaineers, who came from the eastern to
central time zone. The delay was over four and a half hours.
The timeline becomes hazy at this point as to when the team
got to the hotel and settled itself into rooms and ultimately went to sleep.
But what's clear is WVU will only be in Wichita for 19 hours before playing
K-State and spend a total of less than 24 hours in central time before heading
back home.
Huggins and his 2008-09 WVU team experienced a significant
flight delay prior to a first round NCAA tournament game against Dayton and
ultimately lost to the underdog Flyers 68-60 in a 6-11 matchup.
There's no word on how this delay will impact Thursday's
plans, if at all, but it certainly was not the way Huggins envisioned his trip
to face his old Kansas State team beginning. His concern, of course, is how his
Mountaineers finish the trip.
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