Dogs head to Miss. by bus, then plane

The Georgia Bulldogs men’s basketball team was 20 minutes into its bus ride to Starkville, Miss. — their chartered flight out of Athens was canceled due to Tuesday’s winter storm — when Delta called to tell them they could fly them to Columbus, Miss., out of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. So instead of an anticipated six-hour drive through potentially treacherous conditions, particularly coming back late Wednesday night, they changed course.

But as UGA coach Mark Fox said Tuesday, canceling Wednesday night’s game was the absolute last option. He said it is the school’s responsibility to the SEC and to the opponent to make every attempt to get it to a game, regardless of weather, though doing so with safety in mind.

“We owe it to the league to try to get there to play the game,” Fox said on a teleconference call Tuesday. “So we’re going to head out and do whatever we can to make it over there. That’s part of our responsibility as competitors. If we have to hitchhike we’ll find a way to get there.”