She said about 2 ½ miles from the airport, the bus filled with smoke and the players scrambled out to the side of the road, where they shivered in the 5-degree weather.
“For a while, it was chaos,” Reiss said.
The players’ bags were rescued and eventually Ubers were called and coaches who had driven to the airport on their own rushed back to the rescue.
Once the players took a charter flight to Dayton, settled into the University of Dayton Marriott and then held a brief practice at UD Arena, they returned to their hotel just as a crippling snowstorm rolled in and paralyzed the area.
Meanwhile, UD officials and personnel at the Arena were doing everything they could so the nationally-televised women’s basketball game between the resurgent Flyers and the 17-2 Rams, the best team in the Atlantic 10, could tip off Sunday afternoon.
UD coach Tamika Williams-Jeter would have to rally her players, some of whom had not practiced all week because of illness that hit many of them.
The school got them a 15-seat van to make it across the unplowed roads to the Arena, though center Molly O’Riordan has a Jeep and her four-wheel drive skills equal her post moves and she transported a couple of teammates, too.
The three game officials had their own transportation challenges. Kelsey Reynolds and Ivan Fulton both were driving up Saturday from Cincinnati, but Justin Paluch had a game at Yale Saturday.
He caught a flight from Newark to Columbus, then rented a car and drove across I-70 before it got too bad.
With both teams and the refs here — and the CBS Sports cameras ready to roll — UD officials decided the game could go on, but because drivers faced Level 3 restrictions, no fans would be allowed at the game.
And sure enough, 15 minutes before the tip, every door into the Arena was locked.
Inside, it was a scene reminiscent of the COVID season when the Arena was so empty for games, you could hear the coaches’ conversations on the sidelines and even the sneakers squeaking out on the floor.
At tip-off, two EMS workers — their ambulance parked outside in the snow at the loading dock — sat in the stands behind the south basket. At the opposite end of the court, the Red Scare student section was empty except for the unmanned drum set of the pep band.
Behind the Rhode Island team there were three spectators.
Rand Ney of Germantown – who drove the Buckeye Charters bus that transported the Rhode Island team — sat a few yards away from Donna Ball and Bryan Arman, two Rams fans from Toledo, who had managed to slip in.
They were there to support Brooklyn Gray, one of the stars of the Rhode Island team, who Donna said was an aunt to her granddaughter:
“She’s always called me Grandma Donna. I watch her on TV all the time and went to a game earlier this month in Chicago to see her play.
“This game is kind of neat because we’re the only fans in here. It’s different. I can hear the coaches talking.”
At halftime, Rhode Island was told it wouldn’t be leaving after the game because the bad weather was moving into New England, too. By game’s end they learned they would be in Dayton until Tuesday.
“They’ve shut down all the major airports on the East Coast,” Reiss said. “Depending on when we can get out Tuesday, we might even practice here first.
“I know our men’s team plays here Tuesday night, but they’re not going to be able to fly out until Tuesday morning.”
That’s when Reiss summed up the situation for everyone caught in this full court press of winter:
“You’ve got to roll with the punches.”
Everyone did that Sunday and that brings us to Reiss’s second truism. She stressed it to her team, but it was the same mindset the Flyers had to take into this game:
“I told our players, ‘We’ve got two hours where we’re playing this game, so don’t worry about anything else. You’ve got to keep your focus on what you’re here to do.’”
The Rhode Island and Dayton players and coaches did that Sunday and that made for an entertaining toe-to-toe affair.
The Rams came into the game 8-0 in Atlantic 10 play. The Flyers, 10-9 overall, were 3-5 in the conference.
UD ended up playing one of its best games of the season and with under five minutes left in the fourth quarter, Rhode Island led by just one point.
The Rams ended up winning, 79-66, but that final tally didn’t reflect the back-and-forth nature of much of the game.
UD actually shot a little better percentages — field goals, threes and free throws — than Rhode Island. Its bench outscored the Rams back-ups and the two teams — even with Rhode Island featuring 6-foot-5 center Abina Syla — each scored 34 points in the paint.
UD was led by Ajok Madol and Olivia Leung, both with 13 points. Nicole Stephens had 11 points and Fatima Ibrahim came off the bench and had nine points and nine rebounds.
After the game Flyers grad transfer Maliyah Johnson, who had made both of her three-point attempts Sunday, said although the fans certainly help their cause, it came down to their inner drive:
“Our motto is ‘We All We Got,’ and today we really bought into that.”
‘Without the masks’
Ney — who also chauffeurs all the Edison State teams — is the Rams’ sole bus driver while they’re here in the Miami Valley.
Although the team was ensconced in the Marriott Saturday night, he did take assistant coach Adeniyi Amadou, who spent four years as a UD assistant women’s coach on Jim Jabir’s staff, to the Whole Foods store to buy supplies.
With the Rams stuck in Dayton an extra day, the plan was for him to take them out to a nice restaurant on Monday and then to a movie.
“We’ll use this as team bonding,” Reiss said.
After Sunday’s game, as she stood in the Arena tunnel leading from the court to the waiting bus out back, she commended UD’s effort:
“A real shout out. Kudos to the Dayton administration and especially the facilities management here. They’re a first-class organization. They did an unbelievable job making sure this game took place.”
Then again, that’s no surprise. The Arena crew has risen to the cause for decades.
Tony Caruso, the head equipment manager at UD for 45 years, recalled the way the Arena flooded on Dec. 31, 1990, just three days before the Flyers were to host DePaul in a nationally-televised game.
The Great Miami River just outside the Arena, thanks to melting snow and rain, had risen to its highest level in 27 years. The floor of the Arena is close to 30 feet below street level so ground water is always a problem.
At the time Tim O’Connell, the director of UD Arena, said they pumped out a billion gallons of water each year from beneath the Arena.
This time, then athletics director Tom Frericks said close to 100,000 gallons had seeped into the Arena and covered the floor and locker rooms with two inches of water.
Still, the court was ready for the game with DePaul, who won, 81-73.
Caruso also remembered the February 2003 game that was played at the Arena during another Level 3 snowstorm.
The game featured a young Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary high school sensation — LeBron James, dubbed “The Chosen One” on the cover of Sports Illustrated — going against the Alter Knights.
“Nobody was supposed to be on the roads, but the game drew a sold-out crowd,” Caruso said.
It was in that game that a pair of Alter players — 6-foot-9 Adam Gill and 6-5 Andy Stichweh — both blocked a shot by James. Gill made it his calling card and even had a poster of it hanging in his college dorm room in Florida.
Never mind that James posterized Alter players with five dunks and scored 22 points as his team won by 33 points.
Williams-Jeter said Sunday’s game with no fans would have felt even stranger had everyone involved — including the players when they still were in high school — not experienced the COVID season when fans were limited and often banned from games:
“Today, this was like COVID, only without the masks.”
‘Just a great game’
With no one in the Arena stands Sunday, Donna Ball was right: You could hear the coaches’ sideline conversations.
After the first quarter — in which the lead changed six times and UD briefly held a four-point advantage — you heard Reiss chide her team in no uncertain terms:
“Their players, No. 15, 10, 14 and 0 (MG Talle, Ibrahim, Majol, Johnson) they all are athletes! I told you you’re gonna have to be tough today!”
The Flyers played one of their best games of the season and afterward the team drew praise from Reiss:
“Credit to Dayton. They shot the ball well. They were in attack mode. They have size and they’re athletic and they O-board. I told our team beforehand: ‘This Dayton team, their record is not indicative of who they are. They’re better than that. They’re playing better and better as the season goes on.’”
In the end though, Rhode Island — whose roster includes six French players and three transfers from other A-10 programs — showed its ability to dominate in crunch time.
But as she left the Arena, Reiss — who was an All-American guard at Virginia and played and coached in the WNBA — praised Williams-Jeter:
“I was a huge fan from when she played at UConn. Tamika, Asjha (Jones), Swin (Cash), Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, that was my favorite team of all-time.
“My best friend was an assistant coach at UConn and I used to go to all their practices. All five were first-round picks in the WNBA.
“Tamika was one hell of a player. And she’s just a great woman, a great coach and a great leader of women. I’m a huge fan of hers.”
Over at the Flyers’ dressing room, Williams-Jeter had just as good things to say about Reiss and the Rams, whom she called “a great team.”
And that led to her offering the final truism of the day.
“What a great game today! Just a great game.”
And that happened because everyone found a way to roll with the punches.
About the Author