Marta Suárez, a California women’s basketball player, sometimes finds herself starting homework on a plane flying over the Bay Area and finishing it somewhere above the Great Plains. The wireless network on the Stanford men’s team’s charter flights has become crucial for managing coursework during extensive journeys as they navigate their new role in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Overall, the recent realignment has reshaped the landscape for college programs nationwide. Nevertheless, it has been notably challenging for ACC and Big Ten conferences, which now span all four U.S. time zones and touch both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These modifications have led to prolonged hours spent in airplanes, additional time away from campus, and unexpected travel complications. However, these changes have not translated into improved win records.
As of Thursday, the ACC and Big Ten men’s and women’s teams have only achieved a 30.6% win rate (38-86) when traveling cross-country between the Eastern and Pacific time zones. If not for the undefeated performances by two elite women’s squads — No. 2 USC and fourth-ranked UCLA in the Big Ten — playing in the Eastern time zone, this percentage would drop even further to 25.9%. This serves as a reflection of the challenging position basketball finds itself in amid the football-centered priorities of colleges today.
Mick Cronin, the UCLA men’s basketball coach, criticized the Big Ten’s travel schedule for prioritizing financial gains, bluntly stating in January, “We’ve sold our soul to television.” USC’s coach, Eric Musselman, expressed his frustrations as well, pointing out the persistent disadvantage West Coast teams face due to demanding travel schedules. This rigorous travel has proven to be an ongoing issue for college basketball.
Within the ACC, the only teams to have successfully completed trips to both Cal and Stanford are the 14th-ranked North Carolina women and the Wake Forest men. Meanwhile, in the Big Ten, only three teams from the Eastern time zone — the 15th-ranked Maryland women, the No. 17 Michigan men, and the 18th-ranked Purdue men — have managed to win both games on a single journey out West. Alongside the achievements of the USC and UCLA women, the Oregon men’s team stands as the only other program to sweep an Eastern doubleheader, defeating both Ohio State and Penn State.
Managing these extensive travel schedules requires high levels of diligence from everyone involved. Athletes must endure long flights across various time zones while balancing rest, recovery, academics, and game readiness. The California team clocked 18,015 travel miles during the regular season, with trips often topping 2,100 miles each. Heading to the ACC Tournament in North Carolina added another 4,640 miles in total. This marks a considerable change from traveling to nearby tournaments in Las Vegas or Seattle.
Experiencing trips from the West Coast to the East implies students miss several school days, attend classes amid time-zone challenges, and sometimes face flight delays or refuel stops, making sleep a scarce commodity. “It wasn’t that bad,” shared Suárez, a senior forward from Spain. “There’s a lot of talk about it and it makes sense, but we’re young girls, we’re competitive, we’re excited about playing basketball and that adds to it.”
Wake Forest mens’ coach Steve Forbes has dealt with extensive travel before; as an assistant at Louisiana Tech when they competed far across the Western Athletic Conference, even traveling to Hawaii. Recalling those experiences, Forbes anticipated some of the hurdles. On a recent trip, Forbes had his team fly commercially from Charlotte, held practices, grabbed two wins against Stanford and California, and managed an impromptu visit to an iconic San Francisco site. Although they faced significant delays returning home, they returned with a pair of victories for their efforts.
First-year Stanford men’s coach Kyle Smith, familiar with lengthy travel stints from his past roles at Washington State, the University of San Francisco, and Columbia, finds the mileage on their charter flights a new adventure. “Honestly, it has been way better than we expected. Our guys have really bonded during the travel,” Smith noted, highlighting how the team stays occupied with card games and schoolwork.
N.C. State’s longtime coach, Wes Moore, adapting to the changing travel demands, recalls simpler and more perilous travel conditions earlier in his career. “I have been doing this a long time. We used to take seven-, eight-hour bus rides, and they had to ride with me in vans way back when,” Moore reminisced. Given the extensive distances, taxing schedules, and tight win records, collegiate basketball teams face a challenging new era in cross-country travel.