College basketball fans who checked the schedule on Saturday night were left scratching their heads. Two games were set to start at almost the same time, and the same school was listed in both. Was it a mistake? A glitch on the schedule page? It was neither. The schedule was real, and the confusion that followed was just as real.

The school is Bethesda University. On Saturday, Nov. 7, the Anaheim, California, school was scheduled to play at Pepperdine in Malibu at 6 p.m. and at Southern Utah in Cedar City at 7:30 p.m. Both times are local. The tip-offs were so close that the two games overlapped, and they were in two different states, per an Instagram post by CBS Sports.

So how can one team play two games at once? The Flames split their roster in two. Bethesda has 23 players on its active roster, with 11 on one squad and 12 on the other. Each squad went to a different gym. The roster has 21 guards, one forward and one center, so every player counts.

Saturday was only one stop in a wild week. Bethesda has five games in four days across three states. It started Friday in Hawaii at 7 p.m. Then came the two games on Saturday. On Sunday, it plays Portland in Honolulu at 2:30 p.m., and on Monday, UT Arlington in Honolulu at 4:30 p.m. The reports do not explain how the two squads will cover every stop.

And the schedule is strange well beyond this week. The Flames opened the season 0-4. Their first home game is not until Dec. 16, and they will play 18 straight games on the road or at neutral sites. They will split up again on Nov. 11, against West Coast Baptist and La Sierra, and on Dec. 9, against the Masters University and Sacramento State.

The weekend was already odd before all this.

On Friday, the New Mexico State women’s basketball team trailed Southern Utah by a point with 20 seconds left when Emma Christiano stole a pass and made a layup. The announcer yelled, “Aggies lead!” But she had scored on the wrong basket, and Southern Utah was now up by three. New Mexico State still won 64-63. That same night, Northwestern State’s Karma Wynn scored on the wrong basket against Arkansas, and Northwestern State lost 89-59.

Against that background, fans had the same question about Bethesda.

“So the A and B teams?” one asked.

Another wrote, “Very curious of how this is possible/allowed. And also….. why?”

The first fan has it right. It is an A team and a B team. Bethesda is a small private Christian school, founded in 1976 by Pastor David Yonggi Cho. It has a few hundred students and plays five sports in the National Christian College Athletic Association, not the NCAA. The reports do not say when the school first did this or why. What they do show is a very heavy road schedule. 

The Flames lost their first three games to La Sierra, Life Pacific, and Hope International. Their first home game is not until Dec. 16, and they will play 18 straight games on the road or at neutral sites. They will split up again on Nov. 11 against West Coast Baptist and La Sierra, and on Dec. 9 against The Masters University and Sacramento State.

Other fans made jokes. One shared a Harry Potter clip of Hermione using a time-turner to be in two places at once.

Others wrote, “This can’t be real 😭” and “wait how.” 

One account posted a funny comment, seeing the brigher side of the two teams.

“Double the games you play, double the opportunities to win. . . 🤷‍♂️”

The school has pulled off big wins before. Bethesda beat Cal State Northridge in 2016 and 2021, making it just the second non-NCAA or NAIA program to upset a Division I team twice. This is also not its first trip to Cedar City. Last November, the Flames visited Southern Utah and lost 118-60. 

The answer to “how” is simple: two squads, two cities and two scoreboards on the same night. For a small school with a roster of 23, it is a way to get through a schedule that is mostly away from home. Fans are still asking questions, and the Flames will do it all over again in just a few days.