Because making sure that a college basketball game goes off without a hitch is more important than transporting boring ol’ passengers who can’t sink a three-pointer to save their lives, Delta Air Lines recently chose to cancel a commercial flight and use that jet for a charter flight for the University of Florida basketball team.

The Gainesville Sun reports that on Sunday afternoon, passengers expecting to fly on a Delta Connection flight from Gainesville to Atlanta found out their jet had been repurposed to get the UF Gators up to Connecticut for their Monday night game against U.Conn.

The team’s charter flight had been grounded for maintenance issues, and rather than have the team wait for that plane to be repaired or to find other travel options, Delta canceled the commercial flight and gave those passengers travel vouchers, which is exactly what people want when trying to get home on the busiest travel weekend of the year.

A Delta rep said the swap was made “due to operational need and aircraft routing requirements as a result of the busy travel holiday.”

One bumped passenger says they were originally told their flight was canceled because of mechanical problems, but called shenanigans on that explanation when they spotted a bunch of basketball players boarding their supposedly broken down plane.

A rep for the airport tells the Sun that the passengers were all eventually booked on other flights, though some did not get to leave until Monday. And the Sun reports that some passengers had to be driven quite some distance to airports in Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa in order to catch other flights.

Let’s just hope they got home in time to see the Gators lose to the Huskies by one point.

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