With a new basketball season on the horizon, Outside the Huddle takes a look at one of the most important pieces: the travel.
Winning on the road can be hard, whether you are in the SAC or NECC or anywhere between. Teams who can win at home are great, teams that can win on the road consistently are almost mythical sometimes. With multiple games in a week, long stretches without a game in your home gym, how do some teams deal with the pressures of being road warriors during the long winter months of high school basketball season.
Here are the 4 area teams who will log the most miles to travel and play this season, along with some other notes.
Note: This includes all games that are currently scheduled, including tournaments. Multiple day tournaments or shootouts that are clearly within driving distance (i.e. Carroll girls at the DeKalb Tournament) are credited as two trips. NECC Tournament first round games are included, but ACAC Tournament games are not since that draw has not taken place yet.
1. Snider Panthers
The Panthers will travel a total of 719.8 miles this season, averaging out to 59.98 miles per trip.
2. Warsaw Tigers
Warsaw pushes on Snider for first place, traveling 714.8 miles total this season, 59.54 miles per trip.
3. Norwell Knights
Norwell will travel 605.2 total miles this season, an average of 55.02 per trip.
4. Homestead Spartans
Homestead will travel 518.7 miles this season, an average of 43.23 miles per trip.
THE BIG TRIPS OF NOTE
Huntington North sets the tone early, opening the year with three straight away games and five of its first six outside its own gym. It’s a similar story for Norwell, which endures a midseason marathon of five road trips in six games, highlighted by multi-game tournaments at Plainfield and Noblesville. The Warsaw Tigers, meanwhile, may hold the title for most unusual travel itinerary—on November 15, they literally switch time zones to face Valparaiso, then later trek on back-to-back long hauls to the Hall of Fame Classic before visiting Fairfield at the historic Hoosier Gym.
In Angola, December 13 marks the start of a long haul. From that date through the end of the season, the Hornets are home just three times while traveling six times—five of those consecutively between December 13 and January 9. Southern Wells opens its campaign with a 45-mile trip to Union (Modoc) before staying put for nearly a month, only to hit the road again for five of its next six, including long hauls to Woodlan (48.7 miles) and Daleville (50.6 miles).
Whitko’s early season is a blur of road signs—six of its first eight are away—but January brings relief, with just three road trips the rest of the way. Woodlan flips that script: the Warriors hit the highway for seven of their final nine, including a five-game stretch.
Bluffton starts close, traveling only 8.9 miles to Norwell, but that’s the last short trip they’ll enjoy—all other road games are 24 miles or more away. Churubusco may have the most brutal slate of all, playing 12 games on the road (including the NECC Tournament), with eight consecutive away contests between December 10 and January 20.
The Fort Wayne teams aren’t feeling as much of the travel bug. Bishop Dwenger’s 1.9-mile jaunt to Northrop on December 5 is one of the shortest trips in the area—second only to Bishop Luers’ 1.6-mile drive to South Side on November 14—but both are rare luxuries with some SAC scheduling. Fairfield racks up serious mileage too: five non-conference road games totaling 77.7 miles before its first road league contest, and a 136-mile New Year’s journey to play Warsaw in the Hoosier Gym—despite the two schools being just 26.6 miles apart in reality.
Fremont, true to its northern location, travels far and wide early—207 miles across three road games to South Bend St. Joe, Adams Central, and Blackhawk Christian. New Haven’s calendar is even tougher: 12 road games total, with nine straight between December 1 and December 20. Northrop faces its own late-season gauntlet—six of its final eight regular season games are away, capped by a January 3 tournament that leaves them home just twice after the new year. And Snider? The Panthers start their season with a bang, as four of their first six trips each top 100 miles.
From time-zone changes to back-to-back tournaments, from 1.6-mile crosstown rides to 100-mile odysseys, Northeast Indiana’s girls basketball teams are proving that the road to greatness often begins—literally—on the road.
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