A rare FAA ground stoppage on Friday briefly threw a wrinkle into the weekend travel plans for college teams across South Carolina, but most of the Clemson and South Carolina schedule appears to be holding steady.
The biggest question mark centers on the marquee women’s basketball matchup in Greenville. No.
3 Southern Cal was scheduled to fly from Los Angeles to South Carolina for Sunday’s game against No. 1 South Carolina, but the Trojans said in a post on X at 5:24 p.m.
Eastern that they were “grounded in Los Angeles.”
“Will provide updates as we have them,” Southern Cal’s team account wrote.
The game, the second meeting in the “Real SC” neutral-site series, is still listed for a 1 p.m. Sunday tipoff on ABC at Bon Secours Wellness Arena. With the teams on opposite coasts, driving is not an option for Southern Cal, and the three-hour time difference could create some body-clock and recovery issues ahead of a matchup between undefeated teams that could matter for NCAA Tournament seeding in March.
The FAA issued the stoppage at 3:54 p.m., pausing all departing flights “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” It is only the third such stoppage this century.
National officials said the issue stems from a telecommunications error and is not tied to a cyberattack or anything “nefarious,” according to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.
Elsewhere, South Carolina football was already clear. A team spokesman told The State that USC flew from Columbia to Arkansas without issue on Friday and landed around 2:15 p.m. local time.
FlightAware showed the plane taking off from Columbia at 1:14 p.m., roughly three hours before the stoppage. Shane Beamer’s team plays at Arkansas on Saturday at 7:45 p.m. on SEC Network.
Clemson’s football game against Georgia Tech also appears unaffected. A Georgia Tech spokesman said the Yellow Jackets bused from Atlanta to the Clemson area on Friday, which was the plan all along given the short trip of about 125 miles. The Tigers and Yellow Jackets kick off Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on The CW.
South Carolina men’s basketball should be fine as well. The Gamecocks host Gardner-Webb at 2 p.m.
Saturday at Colonial Life Arena, and the Bulldogs are only about two hours away in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. A USC spokesman said there are no changes to the game.
Benedict College’s scheduled SIAC championship game should also go on as planned. Kentucky State was already on location Friday for Saturday’s 10:30 a.m. title game at Charlie W. Johnson Stadium, according to a Benedict spokesman.
Clemson men’s basketball’s Friday home game against Georgetown at Littlejohn Coliseum is not expected to be affected by the stoppage. It is not clear whether Georgetown, based in Washington, D.C., traveled by bus or flew to South Carolina, though any travel disruption would likely come after the game as the Hoyas head home.
Clemson women’s basketball, meanwhile, has a Sunday home game against Stetson at 5 p.m. The Tigers played South Carolina on Thursday, and it remains unclear whether the FAA stoppage will have any effect on that game, since it is still two days away.
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