WNBA’s Aces have travel woes getting to Washington for game

Published Aug. 3, 2018 4:33 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) The Las Vegas Aces had an adventure getting to Washington for their game against the Mystics on Friday night.

The Aces began a key three-game road trip in Washington and had flight issues getting to D.C. They were scheduled to take off from Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon, but their flight was delayed more than eight hours before being cancelled.

The team scrambled to get on overnight flights that got the players to Dallas on Friday morning where they could connect to Washington.

The Aces then had to split their team up into groups to get on different flights in Texas with the last set of players boarding a flight that gets into Washington around 3 p.m. The WNBA moved the original tipoff back an hour to 8 p.m.

In all, it will have been over a day of travel for the team that left the players unhappy.

''No shoot around. No night of sleep. No beds. No food. Right now we will land in DC at 245pm that has us going straight to the gym bc of traffic and bags...and you want us to play?,'' All-Star guard Kayla McBride tweeted. ''Oh ok.''

WNBA teams aren't allowed to fly charter because of the cost and the competitive advantage it could give some teams willing to spend the money.

''We can't control the weather, but league can control whether or not player health will be put at risk tomorrow,'' center Carolyn Swords tweeted. ''Delays, cancelations & now taking a red-eye to get to DC(at)1pm. Aces will have been traveling for 24 hrs by the time we land. It takes less time to get to Sydney, AUS.''

The Aces currently sit in ninth place in the standings, 1 game behind Dallas for the final playoff spot.

Las Vegas wasn't the only WNBA team with travel issues Friday. The Indiana Fever were supposed to fly to New York for their game against the Liberty on Saturday. The Fever sat at the airport for three hours before being told their flight was cancelled because of weather. There were thunderstorms in New York on Friday afternoon.

The Fever, who had a travel party of 20 people, were planning on flying to New York on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. to play a game that tips at 3 p.m.

Indiana had a game postponed in 2015 when it couldn't get a flight to Connecticut from Washington after playing the Mystics the night before.

---

Follow Doug on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dougfeinberg