ST. LOUIS — An NCAA women's basketball team bus was broken into in downtown St. Louis Friday.
The Anderson University (Indiana) team was heading to the Webster University campus to play in the Webster Tip-Off Classic when they stopped at the Gateway Arch to take a team photo.
That's when the break-in happened, multiple sources have confirmed. The 17 players and their coaches left the bus for about 20 minutes around 2 p.m. It was parked between the Gateway Arch Riverboats and the Arch.
The Anderson University Ravens were scheduled to play against the Milwaukee School of Engineering's Raiders at 6 p.m., but all the team's bags were stolen. The thieves also took several electronic devices, personal documents and numerous basketball jerseys.
"When we got back to our vans, one of them had been broken into," said Jon Gin, the head coach for Anderson University's women's basketball program. "A lot of our stuff was missing: gameday jerseys, backpacks with laptops, iPads, and iPods. All that kind of stuff was taken."
One of the Ravens' parents found the team jerseys in a nearby dumpster. Some of the players were able to track their stolen devices to Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, but the Bellefontaine Neighbors Police Department couldn't find them.
The bus driver's door lock was tampered with and damaged.
"St. Louis is a fun time," Gin said. "It's a great city to be a part of. It just sucks that bad things happen."
The Ravens went on to beat the Raiders 66 to 60 Friday night.
The Webster University Gorloks lent jerseys and shoes to the Ravens to play tonight in the championship game against the host team. The team pulled the best sizes from their own inventory to fit the opposing players correctly.
"They play fast," Webster University women's basketball coach, Jordan Olufson, said ahead of Saturday's game.
"They press. They shoot the three. They're well-coached. They're young. They're scrappy. So, I kind of feel that the way they play is how they handled the situation. They're resilient. It shows how they play on the court and how they dealt with this off the court as well."
When it comes to how some collegiate athletes may feel about playing in St. Louis in the future, "I would just say balance that out," Director of Athletics for Webster University, Scott Kilgallon, said.
"We work with that all the time with recruits particularly out of state. That this is a very safe campus and St. Louis is a great city."
Webster went on to beat Anderson with a final score of 101 to 62 to win the four-team Webster Classic this weekend.
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