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Aztecs basketball team not immune to travel disruptions

SDSU's Micah Parrish needed to take three flights for 12 hours to get back to San Diego from Detroit.
SDSU’s Micah Parrish needed to take three flights for 12 hours to get back to San Diego from Detroit after the team’s holiday break.
(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Aguek Arop still hasn’t returned from the team’s holiday break, and Micah Parrish needed three flights and 12 hours to get back from Detroit

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San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said his goodbyes to his team after their 62-46 victory against UC San Diego last Tuesday, sending them home for a few days and wishing them happy holidays.

Part of him wondered when he might see them next.

He tracks the weather. He follows the news. He knew the travel nightmare that was ahead.

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“There’s nothing you can do, the whole country is dealing with it,” Dutcher said. “There are people crying in the airport who are stuck there for three or four days with no hotels, no money. We’re not immune to it. At some level, we’re no different than the general public. We’re dealing with the same frustrations with travel.

“Unfortunately, we have to play a basketball game and that’s just the way it is.”

The players had an afternoon practice scheduled for Christmas Day to begin preparations for the Mountain West opener Wednesday night against Air Force at Viejas Arena. By some miracle, given the cascading flight cancellations across the country (and especially in San Diego), everyone except Aguek Arop made it back Sunday.

Arop went home to Omaha, Neb., and had his Christmas Day flight canceled. The first flight to San Diego with an available seat was Friday.

“That wasn’t going to work,” Dutcher said. “We started looking at flights to San Jose, Orange County, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas.”

They finally got him a seat on an Allegiant Air flight to Las Vegas scheduled to arrive Monday night at 11:35 p.m.

The first available flight from Las Vegas to San Diego isn’t until Wednesday, so they’re trying to find him ground transportation. Worst case, a staffer may have to drive there to retrieve him in time for Tuesday’s early afternoon practice.

Junior wing Micah Parrish feels his pain.

Parrish went home to Detroit and learned on Christmas Eve that his nonstop flight to San Diego the next morning was canceled. He spent the next four hours refreshing Delta Airlines’ web app, finally finding a way back to San Diego.

Detroit to Dulles (outside Washington, D.C.) to Atlanta to San Diego. Three planes, four cities, 12 hours.

The first flight was more than an hour late while waiting to be de-iced (wind chills were well below zero). The flight to Atlanta was delayed as well, and Parrish had to switch concourses at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

“I had to run,” said Parrish, who had a backpack and carry-on suitcase. “I got in at the B gates and had to go to the A gates. I’m running, running, running, and I as run up to the gate they’re saying they had an extra seat for one more person. They said, ‘Good you got here. We were about to take your name off.’ I would have been stuck in Atlanta.”

Parrish missed all of the Christmas practice. Keshad Johnson missed most of it coming from Oakland, but he was fortunate. The rest of the day’s flights to San Diego were canceled, as were all of them Monday.

The Aztecs host Air Force, then play at UNLV on Saturday. The plan is to fly Friday afternoon and return immediately after the 1 p.m. game — assuming the airlines have achieved some level of normalcy.

“The way these flights are,” Dutcher said, “we might end up on a bus to Vegas.”

Practice plans

Had the Aztecs played a nonconference game, Dutcher said he wouldn’t have resumed practice until Dec. 26. Because it is the conference opener and it’s Air Force, which requires extra attention to prep for the Princeton offense and an unorthodox switching defense, he brought them back on Christmas.

They practiced once on Christmas, had a two-a-day Monday and will practice once Tuesday, giving them four sessions ahead of the 9-4 Falcons.

“Hopefully that will have us better prepared,” Dutcher said. “If this was our first practice and we’re playing in two days, I’d be concerned. But I feel like we’ve made progress each day. I liked the way we practiced today.”

Community service

The players will participate in a drive-through food distribution event Tuesday from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the New Season’s Church in Spring Valley. It’s part of the community service component of the MESA Foundation, the name, image and likeness collective that works with the men’s and women’s basketball teams at SDSU.

The event is in conjunction with Heaven’s Windows, a Spring Valley organization with the stated mission “to alleviate the hardships experienced by residents of San Diego County and take pressure off of struggling families.”

In exchange for monthly NIL payments of about $2,000 from the MESA Foundation, men’s scholarship players are required to promote via social media and then participate in about a half-dozen charitable events annually. In October, they took part in the ALS Walk at Mission Bay.

The rankings

A Mountain West team is in the Associated Press top 25 released Monday, but it’s not the Aztecs.

New Mexico made its first appearance since the 2013-14 season, landing in a tie at No. 22 with Xavier. SDSU is eighth among others receiving votes (or 33rd overall) with 39 points, more than double what it got last week.

The Lobos did not crack the top 25 in the USA Today coaches poll. They are fifth among others receiving votes, four spots ahead of the Aztecs. The only other Mountain West team receiving votes in either poll is Utah State.

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