Wednesday’s storms hampered travel plans

OKLAHOMA CITY - Baylor was delayed. Notre Dame was diverted.

The first batch of severe weather in this year's tornado season hit Oklahoma on Wednesday, killing one person, injuring several more and leaving tens of thousands without power.

Oklahoma County was one of 25 counties in Oklahoma in which Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency.

The storms wreaked minor havoc with two of the teams' travel into the city for the Sweet 16.

Notre Dame's plane took off from South Bend around 4:30 (CDT). Storms in the Oklahoma City area forced the Fighting Irish to land in Lawton, Okla., about 90 miles southeast of here.

'We had a plan that we might have to spend the night in Dallas,” said Irish Coach Muffet McGraw. 'They saw the Lawton airport was a little bit closer, so we decided to land there and bus over from there, so the buses came and picked us up, and just a little minor inconvenience.

'We hung out, we ordered pizza. It was a very small airport. We were the only ones there, and we had about 95 with the band and cheerleaders and our whole party.”

The Fighting Irish reached their hotel around midnight.

Baylor was scheduled for a 6:30 takeoff from Waco, but was delayed.

'We were on the runway, and we were told there was a tornado, and the airport had been closed down in Oklahoma City,” said Lady Bears Coach Kim Mulkey. 'So we sat on the runway, and then they decided that we had to go back and refuel, so they took us back to the terminal.”

The Bears were were in their hotel around 10 p.m.

Stanford and Iowa both reached Oklahoma City before the storm hit, but both teams had issues of their own upon their arrival.

'It was extremely dark, and I said something to the bus driver, ‘Do you think this is a tornado,'” said Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer. 'He said, ‘No, no, no.' Then we were getting (weather alerts) on our phones and it was hailing pretty hard.

'We were just thankful to get to our hotel.”

The Hawkeyes were at a restaurant named The Mantel when it got ugly outside, and a portion of the roof caught on fire, believed to be the result of a lightning strike.

'All of a sudden, quite a few fire trucks pulled up in front, and my daughter got up to go to the restroom, and she said, ‘Mom, I just saw a fireman run through with a ladder in his hand,'” said Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder.

The fire was quickly extinguished.

'They never got us out of there, and my steak was still medium rare, so it was all OK,” Bluder said.

GREENFIELD, WRIGHT REUNITED

Iowans Taylor Greenfield and Markisha Wright were AAU teammates in high school. They'll be battling for an Elite Eight berth when Stanford meets Notre Dame in a Friday's nightcap.

Tipoff is set for about 9 p.m.

Greenfield (Ballard) and Wright (Des Moines East) played for All-Iowa Attack, an AAU squad based in Central Iowa.

'We'll give each other occasional (text messages),” said Greenfield, a senior forward who averages 5.1 points per game, including 15.0 ppg in her last four games, for Stanford (26-9). 'At the Final Four last year, I got to see her and that was a lot of fun.”

Wright is a senior forward. She averages 2.9 points per game for Notre Dame (33-2). A captain, Wright earned a start March 1 against Pittsburgh and made all six of her field-goal attempts for 14 points in 14 minutes.

Greenfield termed her collegiate as 'up and down,” but said she is playing 'the best basketball of my career as of late. What I'm able to accomplish is being displayed now.”

She was named the Pac-12 Tournament Most Outstanding Player.

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