Cal Poly fighting through delays on their way back to Texas

A three game road trip to Texas was never so complicated.

After playing the first two games of a three-game Texas road trip to end their pre-conference schedule, the Cal Poly men’s basketball team took a five-day break around the Christmas holiday. Players, coaches, and team personnel left from San Antonio last week and disbursed to Seattle, Minnesota, other parts of Texas, and all over California, among other places.

Their return became a nightmare of delays and cancellations caused by a strong storm in Texas that brought tornadoes to the northern part of the state. According to this article, about half of Sunday’s flights were delayed, averaging an hour or two. Many Cal Poly folks wished their flights were delayed by only a few hours.

Josh Martin (front right) and Trevor John (front left), along with coaches and teammates were on this plane for the better part of five hours without leaving San Antonio. Gross. Photo courtesy of Josh Martin

After being delayed on a flight from San Luis Obispo to Phoenix, only about half of a group of coaches and staff were able to sprint to the connecting flight on Sunday morning. Others, including play-by-play broadcaster Tom Barket and some coaches who gate-checked bags, were not that lucky and were delayed in Phoenix for most of the day after missing the connection.

“Mitch Reaves made it and they closed the door behind him,” said Associate Head Coach Paul Fortier. “We were 30 seconds behind him, but they had closed the door.”

Some who made the connection probably wished they hadn’t. A group of players and coaches on the flight from Phoenix to Houston circled Houston for some time before diverting to San Antonio. After sitting on the tarmac for three hours there, they were allowed off the plane for 20 minutes before boarding again, only to wait for a few more hours. That group arrived at Houston around 8:30 or 9:00 on Sunday night and was able to check into their hotel. Josh Martin, who spent the holiday in Phoenix, was one player who made the San Antonio stop.

“I feel weird I feel like I’m rested but as soon as I step on the court, my body’s going to be deflated and not ready to go,” the 6′ 8″ Martin said before Monday’s practice. “I tried to do some stretching last night, but I was definitely sore.”

The three who didn’t make the flight out of Phoenix — Joe Callero, Paul Fortier, and Barket — tried in vain to get on at least two flights before they finally caught one late in the evening and arrived at about 12:30, some six hours after the scheduled Sunday evening practice at Rice. Only seven players made it to the session.

“Being 6’9″, it wasn’t as bad as having to sit on an airplane for that long,” said Fortier, who caught some NFL action on the televisions in the airport with Callero and Barket throughout the day.

Joel Awich, a 6’7″ senior from Minnesota, had a two-hour delay, but his direct flight from Minneapolis was able to land safely and he made it to the scheduled practice along with seniors David Nwaba and Reese Morgan, among others. For his part, Awich seemed pretty focused on the job ahead.

“We just watched film on them,” said Awich on Monday afternoon before practice. “They looked really good. Like every other game, a team we can beat, but we just have to be serious, get our heads in the game early, shake off all this flight stuff, get back to where we are as a team, and handle our business tomorrow.”

All three Texas-based players ended up sleeping in their own beds on Sunday night. After Taylor Sutlive’s flight from San Antonio to Houston was canceled Sunday night, he hitched a ride with his family, picking up Hank Hollingsworth in Austin on the way to Houston, where he arrived around the middle of the day on Monday.

Sutlive, who mostly followed the Texas Longhorns growing up just north of San Antonio, also talked about shaking off the rust.

“It could affect the team mentally,” said Sutlive of the delays. “But A&M’s a good team regardless. We missed a practice yesterday. A lot of it’s concentration and focus. We have practice tonight and we’ll be ready to go. The atmosphere in [Reed Arena] is great and obviously we’ve got to come ready to play.”

The two players who got the worst of the travel issues were Seattle-based Luke Meikle and Zach Gordon. On the same flight, the two had a similar diversion as the group that went to San Antonio, only ZG and Luke (6’8″ and 6’9″ tall respectively) were diverted to Lake Charles, Louisiana and  sat on the Tarmac for up to 7 hours without getting off the plane and without food. By the time they let them deplane in Lake Charles, the only place they could get food was McDonalds. After finding a hotel in Louisiana late on Sunday night, Meikle and Gordon finally made it to Houston on Monday morning and joined the team in College Station around the middle of the day.

Fortier said that the Mustangs had a lot to do on Monday in preparation for Tuesday’s game.

“It was the first time the guys were able to present our scouting report to them,” said Fortier. “We did that this afternoon once ZG and Luke got in, so were were able to go over some things from our last game as well. We still want to learn from things we can learn from. Then we got to really get a good sweat. Our guys’ intensity level was good. I think from the few days off, guys came back with their batteries charged.”

MT @TomBarket: Full practice, Reed Arena in College Station. CP plays 2nd game ever vs SEC. Tomorrow 5PT v Texas A&M pic.twitter.com/szT7x0mvJw

— Big West MBB (@BigWestMBB) December 29, 2015

Fortier sees a big test ahead of the Mustangs on Tuesday night in College Station.

“They’re a big, talented team, and they have a number of seniors,” said Fortier of the Aggies. “When you see top-25 teams [in today’s college basketball], you see younger players, but they have a number of seniors in their starting five. They are an older experienced team that play well together and a couple of freshmen who play together as well.”

Finally reunited, Cal Poly will tip-off against #19/20 Texas A&M at 5:00pm. You can find the game on the SEC Network or listen to Tom Barket here.

Thankfully a full practice in College Station tonight w/ the entire team. Game Tue. vs. #14 Texas A&M will require our best effort in years!

— Joe Callero (@CoachCallero) December 29, 2015

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1. Photos – Mustangs lose pre-conference finale at Texas A&M - Fansmanship says:

   12/30/2015 at 9:08 pm

   […] Poly had a rough time getting to College Station, and once they got there, they had a pretty rough time as well, losing to Texas A&M 82-63 […]