Playoff push: Women’s basketball team boosts bus out of snow

Women’s basketball team pushes bus out of snow

No traction, no problem.

When the Northeastern women’s basketball team bus got caught in the snow Wednesday in Philadelphia, where the Huskies are playing in the CAA tournament, the team rallied together and sprung into action.

The team meets during a pre-CAA tournament practice on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of Northeastern women’s basketball team.

With a Nor’easter pounding the East Coast, the team had just wrapped up practice at St. Joseph’s University in preparation for its quarterfinal game in CAA tournament on Thursday. Around 1 p.m., the bus was making its way to the team hotel, stopped at a streetlight on a hill, and couldn’t get moving again.

“We could hear the bus driver pressing the gas and not going anywhere,” said sophomore shooting guard Shannon Todd, describing the experience by phone Wednesday night. “Ayanna [Dublin] and I looked at each other and said, ‘We’re going to have to push this bus.’ We were kind of joking at first. Then everyone was yelling it, and our coaches were like, ‘Alright, let’s go.’”

That’s when the players, coaches, and staff piled out of the bus and worked together with the driver to budge the bus out of the snow and ice. It took between 10 and 15 minutes to finally get moving again.

A video of the wild scene that the team posted to social media has gone viral, catching the attention of national and even international news outlets. Todd said it’s been fun to see the video go viral, and that her and her teammates’ phones have been “blowing up” all day with texts from family and friends.

“This team is so close and plays so well together,” said Mike Skovan, assistant director for athletics communications, who is traveling with the team. “It was such a Northeastern moment, people coming together in a situation like this and figuring out how to get out of it.”

Todd agreed that the entire experience exemplified how tight-knit the team is, and she noted that it parallels the Huskies’ season in a way. The team dealt with some injuries early in the year, but came together to overcome adversity and ended the regular season with a 16-13 record, including winning four of its final five games. The Huskies set the team record for most CAA regular season victories (11).

Northeastern earned the four-seed in the CAA tournament and will face fifth-seeded Delaware in the quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon. “[Thursday] is a huge game for us,” Todd said. “We’re looking to play our game and come together and play as a unit. That’s when we’re at our best.”