MALVERN, Ark. — Five students started to run across the five-lane highway and stopped several times. The lights whizzed by, just far enough apart to entice a runner but not far enough to squash someone imagining a real-life Frogger that might put a damper on the road trip.

It’d been 24 hours since the crew had walked from the Jabberwocky Café to the bus and while most students said they were handling it well, the final stretch dragged.

Once the students reached the promised land, the lit up yellow-and-black Waffle House offering college kid-affordable manna, a surprised crew of three cooks wanted to know how a group of orange-clad New York students found themselves in southern Arkansas on a Friday night.

“But what if you lose?” a female customer asked once the explanation finished.

She was a University of Arkansas-Little Rock alumna and knew about rude awakenings from March Madness dreams. The 12th-seeded UALR Trojans had upset No. 5 Purdue on the opening Thursday of the NCAA Tournament but was eliminated by Saturday.

It’s been an uncomfortable thought throughout the bus ride; one that most people haven’t liked to consider. It is entirely possible that the Syracuse fans may spend more time driving to the game than in Houston itself. Kenpom.com, one of college basketball’s best advanced analytics sites, gives SU a 26-percent chance to pull the upset. Public perception may be even less favorable.

Expected touchdown in Houston is 4 a.m. on Saturday. Should Syracuse lose on Saturday night, the bus will depart from the hotel at 9 a.m. Sunday, meaning a 34-hour, one-way bus ride yielded 29 hours in Texas.

“I don’t care (about the risk),” said sophomore Jordan Spector, an information management and technology major. “The journey’s all worth it even though if it’s one and done. To go root for your team on national TV with 70,000 people in the stadium? It’s all worth it to me.”

The prevailing thought among fans is that they’ve heard this before. Syracuse wasn’t supposed to make the Tournament, but did. The Orange wasn’t supposed to beat Dayton, but did. You know how it goes, all the way down to the upset of No. 1 seed Virginia. So why should they start listening to “experts” now?

The way junior Steven Lisowski sees it, he’s hedging his bets. If the Orange keeps rewriting history and becomes the first-ever double-digit seed to win a Final Four game, he’s on hand for one of college basketball’s greatest moments. If not, he sat on a bus for a while. But it was a free bus. The opportunity outweighs the cost.

“This is a huge gamble,” said Lisowski’s friend and fellow civil engineering major, Lucian Earle. “Getting blown-out (by North Carolina) would be the worst-case scenario. But the national championship would be amazing. Either way, under the seat we have a liter of Jack and some Jäger.”

Both went to Chuck’s and Castle Court when SU made the Final Four, and said they had fun, but that nothing could beat being in the stadium.

It’s similar to how Michelle Sagan felt. The senior remembered freshman year, when she chose not to hop on the Otto’s Army bus to Atlanta when Michael Carter-Williams and James Southerland led the Orange into the 2013 Final Four. Though SU lost its first game, she knew then that, if she got another chance, she had to go.

“A lot of seniors probably didn’t want to come because they wanted to be on campus, and I get that,” Sagan said. “But how could you miss this chance?”

Earle, said he’s missing plenty — three classes already and probably a dozen more if SU wins. If that happens, the bus isn’t expected back on campus until early Wednesday morning.

“It’s going to take me a month to catch back up so this better be worth it. We just can’t lose,” Earle said. He briefly stopped eating his sandwich, pausing to look up and consider.

“Yeah, we just really can’t (lose) after this long drive.”

Published on April 2, 2016 at 10:30 am

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR