West Virginia men’s basketball will have a longer trip when they head to Norman, Oklahoma, on Tuesday.
As snow hit the Morgantown region Monday night and into Tuesday, that altered West Virginia’s travel plans. Instead of flying out of the nearby Clarksburg airport, WVU will now make the 90-plus minute drive to the Pittsburgh airport. Add on top of reduced speed due to road conditions and it will be a different journey for the Mountaineers.
“Today we’ll travel out. It looks like we’ll be flying out of Pittsburgh today, due to the issues with conditions in Clarksburg and our charter issues. We’ll be flying out of Pittsburgh, so it’s going to make it a little bit of a longer travel day,” West Virginia interim head coach Josh Eilert said.
Eilert said as of this morning he had not directly heard of any issues relating to players being able to get to the basketball facility near the WVU Coliseum, but that he assumes today will be a slower day than normal travel wise.
“Several of our staff members have four-wheel drive trucks. I assume if we’re having issues right now, hopefully they’re out gathering up as we speak. I haven’t heard any issues getting in at this point but certainly wouldn’t be surprised if we’re late getting out of here trying to get everybody here to the bus and ready to go,” Eilert said.
Eilert said this is just the nature of traveling in the Big 12, and that tonight’s scheduled practice may be changed depending on how long it takes to get to Oklahoma.
“I’m sure that bus ride is going to take some time to get up to Pittsburgh. But travel is a beast in this league and certainly as hard as anybody in our program trying to figure out g getting places efficiently,” Eilert said. “Nothing you can control, so we jump on the bus at 11 a.m., and start heading north. Fly out of Pittsburgh, fly into Oklahoma City and then make that drive from Oklahoma City to Norman. It will be a long travel day and we’ll adjust our practice accordingly this evening.”
Tip-off between WVU and No. 15 Oklahoma is set for Wednesday night at 8 p.m., and the game will be televised on ESPN+.
