The path was for Wake Forest’s plane to reach Montgomery, Ala., for a refuel on Saturday night after the Deacons won at SMU.

The weather had other plans.

Wake Forest’s men’s basketball team landed in Lafayette, La., a little before midnight (central time), scrambled to find a couple of hotels for the 40-plus people who make up the traveling party, and returned to Greensboro on Sunday evening.

“By the time we got into Louisiana, it was rough. I’ve been in some rough situations on airplanes but that one would be right there, top three,” coach Steve Forbes said via Zoom on Monday. “The pilot made the decision to land in Louisiana.”

Forbes lauded director of basketball operations Frank Davis, who’s been at Wake Forest since Forbes’ arrival in 2020, for his work in finding rooms for the traveling party at two hotels and “about 10 Ubers” to transport the Deacons and their collective staff.

Wake Forest had to come back by landing at Greensboro’s Piedmont International Airport on Sunday at about 5:30 p.m.

The Deacons are taking today off before getting ready for their next game, which doesn’t come until Saturday.

“We’ll practice Tuesday, we’ll take Wednesday off,” Forbes said. “And then we’ll go into our normal scout mode on Thursday, Friday, to get ready to play N.C. State on Saturday.

“I’ve seen the movie ‘St. Elmo’s fire,’ growing up in the 80s. I actually saw what St. Elmo’s fire is in real time. I don’t want to see it again, I can promise you that.”

St. Elmo’s fire is a weather phenomenon that appears as a glowing blue or violet light around the sharp edges of an aircraft, per Google’s AI. It can occur during thunderstorms or when an aircraft flies through heavily charged skies — for a photo, see the thread below.

Last weekend in California, Wake’s flight was delayed, which led to some of the players and coaches flying on a private jet back to Winston-Salem on Sunday evening, and the rest of the team arriving in Charlotte around 5 a.m. last Monday.

So, to recap the eventfulness of the past couple of weeks for Wake Forest:

- Go to California for a week, become the first ACC team to win at both Stanford and California.

- Delayed flight coming back from the West Coast meant board of trustees member and longtime program supporter Mit Shah sending a private jet, on which eight players and four coaches flew back. The rest of the team arrived back in Charlotte nearly 12 hours later.

- After leading by 16 with about 8½ minutes left, Wake Forest loses in the final minute to Florida State on Wednesday night, making a few inexplicable mistakes down the stretch.

- Deacons go on the road to SMU, put together a great second half and win. It’s a Quad-1 win that potentially does more good for Wake’s NCAA tournament hopes than the loss to FSU harmed them.

- After the win in Dallas, Wake Forest forced to make emergency landing in Louisiana and unexpectedly spend the night, returning to Winston-Salem on Sunday afternoon.

And … scene. It’s a good to week to have the week off, Forbes said.

“Sometimes these bye weeks come at a bad time. I think it’s coming at a great time for us,” he said. “It gives Hunter (Sallis) rest, it gives Cameron (Hildreth) more time to be ready to play on Saturday, Efton (Reid III), the guys who are playing a lot of minutes — it gives Omaha (Biliew) more time to get in game shape.”

Forbes also noted the Deacons missed a lot of classes when they went to California for a week, so there’s catching up in the classroom to be done this week, too.

Maybe it’s a good thing that a flight won’t be required of the Deacons for the rest of the season, either — until a potential one for the NCAA tournament.

Wake’s only other remaining road game other than its trip to Raleigh is a game at Duke on March 3. In the following week, the ACC tournament will be in Charlotte.