Washington basketball team bus blows tire, catches fire; players safe

The University of Washington men’s basketball team likely thought its Friday night could not have gotten any worse as it boarded its team bus after an 88-66 loss at Auburn.

Then that bus blew a tire and erupted in flames.

All involved escaped injury-free, according to a school spokesperson, but only after what looks to have been quite the scare. Senior forward Noah Dickerson posted video of the resultant fire to his Twitter account shortly after evacuating:

Dickerson later assured that “Everybody’s OK!” And the players seemed to be in remarkably good spirits, considering the circumstances:

“Crazy cold tho,” Dickerson tweeted. The players were stranded on the side of the road for some time, until a replacement bus came to the rescue.

Their original flight, according to the Seattle Times, was scheduled to land at 5 a.m. PT – 8 a.m. ET – back in Seattle. So the bus fire, presumably, made an already long night even longer.

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