South Alabama will play two college basketball games away from Mobile this week. It is driving to both games in lieu of a chartered flight because of the risk of winter weather across the United States.
The European mind cannot comprehend the Jaguars’ exhausting road trip!
South Alabama’s college basketball team currently sits atop the Sun Belt Conference at 11-4 and 19-9 overall. A bid to March Madness is well within reach, barring a catastrophic collapse down the stretch or disappointing result in the conference tournament. All the Jaguars can do is keep stacking wins.
To do so, they will travel west to San Marcos, Texas on Friday to face Texas State on Saturday. It is a 632-mile drive via I-10 West. Google Maps projects the trip will take 10 hours without stopping and doesn’t include the reverse trip home, totaling more than 1,200 miles in more than 20 hours over two days.
If the upcoming trip is not daunting enough, it comes on the heels of a similar trip just two days prior. South Alabama drove from Mobile to Jonesboro, Arkansas on Tuesday and back to Mobile on late Wednesday night.
The 429-mile drive there took more than eight hours because of snow and ice. Multiple stops along the way were needed for issues related to the weather.
We talked about it (in the locker room after the game). The memories that you make doing this, I said, “This is one of those… you’ll remember this… the time we drove to Jonesboro, eight hours in the snow, had to stop four or five times, scrape the ice off, to get here yesterday.”
— South Alabama head coach Richie Riley
The Jaguars ultimately pulled out a gritty win over the Red Wolves despite shooting 11-of-22 on free throws and getting out-rebounded by 14. And then they had to get back on a bus and drive another eight hours home in the snow.
South Alabama got home to Mobile on early Thursday morning. It will hit the road once again on Friday to drive to Texas State in time for the game on Saturday.
To put this road trip in perspective, lets compare the distance to some random cross-country (or multiple country) drives over in Europe.
- London, England to Edinburgh, Scotland: 398 miles
- London, England to Geneva, Switzerland: 613 miles
- Berlin, Germany to Volodymyr, Ukraine: 554 miles
- Vienna, Austria to Volodymyr, Ukraine: 365 miles
- Paris, France to Berlin, Germany: 655 miles
- Paris, France to Milan, Italy: 567 miles
- Oslo, Norway to Berlin, Germany: 640 miles
- Monaco, France to Barcelona, Spain: 302 miles
You get the idea. South Alabama’s basketball team is bussing approximately 2,200 miles for two road games from Tuesday to Saturday. That is a road trip that European minds simply cannot comprehend!