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Northern Kentucky basketball players in an elevator
Every college basketball team hopes to open up the season on the right foot. However, the guys suiting up for Northern Kentucky this year encountered an unexpected issue on the eve of their first game after enduring an ordeal in an elevator they were stuck inside for an extended period of time.
Earlier this year, college basketball sickos were treated to some fantastic news when The Field of 68 announced it was resurrecting the Opening Day marathon that ESPN introduced in 2008 when it aired more than 24 consecutive hours of games, which ushered in a tradition that was sadly abandoned in 2017.
A grand total of 16 teams were tapped to compete in a slate of eight games on November 2nd, a stretch that was ushered in when High Point and Liberty tipped off at midnight in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
They weren’t the only squads that faced some adversity on the scheduling front, as a showdown between Grambling and Northern Illinois followed at 3 A.M before Appalachian State and Merrimack met just before sunrise when things got underway at six in the morning.
Northern Kentucky was lucky enough to land an afternoon slot, but they did face a slight setback ahead of their contest with UTEP after being treated to an unplanned bonding experience.
Northern Kentucky’s men’s basketball team got stuck in an elevator for more than 40 minutes before their season opener
The Field of 68 split the marathon between the Rock Hill Sports & Event Center and the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the latter of which was selected to host three of the games on opening day.
That includes the matchup between Northern Kentucky and UTEP, which was one of the more palatable options for the players taking part when you consider it was scheduled for 1 P.M. local time on Monday afternoon.
However, the Norse ended up dealing with an issue at what was presumably the hotel they were staying at on Sunday evening, as The Field of 68 shared a video of ten members of the team being rescued from an elevator they were trapped inside for around 40 minutes before they were able to be freed.
UPDATE: The @NKUNorseMBB team has been SAVED after being stuck for 40+ minutes in a broken elevator
Tomorrow’s game WILL be played as scheduled 😂👏 https://t.co/L7hqq9Btnx
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) November 2, 2026
I am sadly not the kind of person who has the ability to identify the specific model of an elevator by sight, but when you consider the average weight of the players listed on the roster is just under 200 pounds, there’s a chance they may have triggered the weight limit of the lift in question (although hotel elevators are usually rated for more than 2,000 pounds).
At least it worked out in the end.