Michigan Women Have Travel Woes Getting Home After First-round March Madness Loss – News18

The Michigan women’s basketball team had a hard time getting home after its overtime loss to Kansas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The team played in Los Angeles on Saturday and was supposed to take a charter flight back to Michigan that evening along with the school’s band and cheerleaders. That didn’t go according to plan.

The Wolverines got to the airport and sat outside for nearly 3 hours waiting for a second pilot. Michigan was told the pilot was being flown in from Texas, team spokeswoman Sarah VanMetre said.

Michigan’s travel party finally started going through security screening to get on the plane at 8:30 p.m. PDT and then boarded an hour later. After sitting on the plane for 75 minutes, the team found out the pilot was over his allotted flight time for the day, so the plane couldn’t take off.

The buses that had dropped the team off at the airport had left, forcing the team to take ride-share cars back to its hotel. Staff members waited 45 minutes for the buses return to transport the team’s luggage.

Players took to social media to share their plight.

The Wolverines returned to the airport on Sunday morning and, after about an hour delay, finally were on their way home.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – Associated Press)