Briann January is well aware there are worse things in life than a long travel day, most especially nowadays.

Still, traveling 36 straight hours on almost no sleep to get back home to America is a test of one’s patience. And endurance.

“Man, it’s been a while,” January said with a laugh when asked the last time she pulled an all-nighter. “I’m in bed by 9 p.m. usually.”

January, a veteran guard who joined the Connecticut Sun via trade on Feb. 19, had been playing for Sopron Basket in Sopron, Hungary. WNBA players have long since traveled to play overseas during the offseason because the pay is better and helps them maximize their earning power while they can.

The Hungarian Basketball Federation announced on March 13 that all leagues would suspend play the next day due to the COVID-19 pandemic. January and Tasha Harris, her girlfriend, left on March 15. They flew out of Vienna, Austria, which is about an hour from Sopron, to London, then to Los Angeles and then, finally, to Phoenix.

“If I didn’t have corona, I had a great chance of picking up COVID when I landed (at Los Angeles International Airport),” January said. “I was stuck in customs with 300-plus people for 3 ½ hours at least going through these lines. And in these lines, they were passing back clipboards. Everybody was touching them, passing them back for people to fill things out.

"Going through one of the lines, they weren’t even taking temperatures of people that were coming in from Europe. I was like, I don’t know exactly what you’re checking for. It was a mess down there and it just took forever.”

And then she missed her connection.

“I didn’t get out of customs until 11:30, 11:45 p.m.,” January said. “Our flight wasn’t until 7 in the morning, so I had to wait to check in again in the morning.

“We hung out (at LAX). We stayed up because of the time difference. We were awake anyways. Luckily, Essence Carson (of the Phoenix Mercury, January’s previous team) came by and brought us some dinner and hung out with us, which passed the time nicely.”

Sopron Basket had pulled out of FIBA’s EuroLeague, Europe’s best (and star-studded league). The team was scheduled to play Famila Schio from northern Italy with the latter being awarded a forfeit win on Feb. 27.

“Hungary, they took it (COVID-19) really serious from the jump,” January said. “We had a chance to make it to the final eight for the playoffs, but our president was like, no, we’re not going to remain. (It was) actually proposed to us moving the game to a different location outside of Italy (to Ljubljana, Slovenia), but our owner was like we’d still be playing people from an infected area, a very infected area at the time. He was like, no, we’re not going to do that.

“If we left (for the EuroLeague game), when we came back, we would’ve been in quarantine for 14 days and we would’ve missed our last game of the season (in Nemzeti Bajnokság I/A, Hungary’s top league).”

January and Harris have both finished their 14 day self-quarantine, although they're still social distancing.

“It’s been challenging finding different ways to get workouts in,” January said. “I’ve been able to do some things I haven’t been able to in a while pertaining to training. I’ve gone on a couple of runs, which has been fun. I’d been able to run my bike, which I love, but I just never have time to do.”

The Sun acquired January in a three-way trade that sent starting off-guard Courtney Williams to the Atlanta Dream. DeWanna Bonner, who had been her teammate in Phoenix, had been traded to Connecticut eight days earlier.

“Phoenix was going in a different direction and I totally respect that,” January said. “Through this process (Mercury general manager) Jim Pitman was great. We were communicating through the whole thing and he got me to where I wanted to go which was Connecticut, which I appreciate.

“I wanted to find a place where I thought I would fit in and that I could be useful to the team and a team that was going to compete for a championship. All of that brought me to Connecticut.”

When January, Bonner and Connecticut will start playing together is unknown. The WNBA announced last Friday that it was postponing the start to the season.

“I’m keeping the hope alive, but I’m not very optimistic it’s going to happen,” January said. “I’m training as if there’s going to be a season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there isn’t.”

n.griffen@theday.com