It's often faster to take the subway than to get a bus through NYU's part of Manhattan. NYU athletics photo Click here to see photos from the team's trip.

The Mets and Yankees may host New York City's most popular "Subway Series," but the New York University women's basketball team takes the phrase a bit more literally for its intra-city rivalry games.

NYU not only played a team just a few subway stops away in its first road contest of 2011-12, but the squad actually took the subway to the game at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

The Violets boarded the "F" line at Broadway-Lafayette station in Manhattan's Greenwich Village and got off at Jay St.-Metrotech in downtown Brooklyn. After a short 15-minute trip, the squad made the brief walk from the station to Poly's Jacobs Gymnasium.

The subway trip is one of three NYU will make to a road game this season. The squad also plans to ride the train to its contests at Baruch on Dec. 3 and Hunter on Jan. 10. Both schools are located in Manhattan.

The Violets have only one other non-conference road game in 2011-12, at Mount Saint Mary in Newburgh, N.Y., meaning they will be taking the subway to three of their four such games this season.

"These kids choose NYU because it is in one of the greatest cities in the world, and life in New York revolves around the subway," said Violet coach Stefano Trompeo. "This is just part of the experience of going to school in New York City. That's why we love NYU – you can do things here that you can't do anywhere else."

NYU's conference schedule, meanwhile, could not be more different from its local one. The Violets play in the most geographically diverse league in Division III, the University Athletic Association.

Six of NYU's seven UAA trips are by plane, headed to destinations as far as St. Louis (Washington U.); Chicago (University of Chicago); Atlanta (Emory); Cleveland (Case Western Reserve); Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellon); and Rochester (University of Rochester).

The lone bus trip the Violets make in UAA play is to Brandeis in Waltham, Mass., just outside of Boston.

Whether NYU goes by bus, plane or subway, travel has had little effect on its success in the last three decades. Since 1984-85, the Violets have recorded 26 winning seasons and have made 16 NCAA Tournament appearances, including winning the 1996-97 national championship and reaching the Final Four in 1995-96 and 2006-07.