Weather plays havoc with Villanova's, Drexel's travel plans

Villanova's and Drexel's basketball teams wandered off to play in the winter weather and did not come immediately home.

The Wildcats lost at Providence on Wednesday night. Because of the weather, they decided to bivouac overnight in Rhode Island. They practiced yesterday morning at Brown and took a charter flight home. They were back on campus by 4 p.m.

The Wildcats are home tomorrow - well, the Wells Fargo Center - vs. Georgetown at noon.

Drexel is a different story. The Dragons are putting some hard miles on their bus.

The Dragons had weather issues and mechanical problems on their trip from Harrisonburg, Va., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Drexel lost on Wednesday night to James Madison.

"Right now, we're at Tysons Corner Center [in Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C.]," Dragons assistant athletic director for communications Mike Tuberosa said yesterday afternoon. "The plan was to come back [after the game], but the decision was made to stay because of the weather.

"We got up early and had breakfast at 8. We made it to the Washington, D.C., area and something goes wrong with the bus. They were working on the bus for an hour. We decide to walk around the mall for an hour. The bus still wasn't fixed, so we ate lunch at the mall.

"Our new bus is scheduled to arrive at 2:30. It's getting close to rush hour. We're hoping the roads aren't going to be too bad. We're hoping to get home by 5:30 or 6:30."

Drexel did arrive home safely last evening. It does not have the luxury of playing at home tomorrow. The Dragons will be back on the bus this afternoon, heading for Hempstead, N.Y.

"The players will go to class [today], we'll probably have a practice and leave for Hofstra [on Long Island]," Tuberosa said. "It has been some trip. It's not as bad for us as it is for people at home trying to shovel out their driveway, but it has been something." *