Fans in the Stands

At last night's games, Louisville fans seemed to outnumber all others. MSU fans made a good showing though, with Kansas and Arizona having a very poor showing. It is a little hard to judge who will have more fans tomorrow, as many Louisville fans left the stadium after their win, and many MSU fans didn't show up until late in the Louisville game.

These photos were provided by TOSSS reader Tom Edwards. The one on the left is during the Louisville-Arizona game. The one on the right is before the MSU-Kansas game. Click them for a much larger image.

My guess for tomorrow's game is that Louisville fans will slightly outnumber MSU fans, but I hope I am wrong.









On the venue, Lucas Oil Stadium was very impressive. I believe it would be a fantastic place to watch a football game. The issue with hosting basketball in these venues is that so many fans are very far from the court. It makes the game very difficult to see, and many fans have to rely on the jumbo screens in two corners of the stadium. However, many fan's sight lines of these screens were blocked by the scoreboard lowered over the center of the court. The stadium also swallows sound, and at its loudest it seemed much quieter than an average game at the Breslin Center.

Rocks, Chalks and Jayhawks

About halfway to Topeka from Kansas City is the small town of Lawrence, Kansas, a charming little town that might be otherwise unremarkable save for one thing - the University of Kansas.

The university, which most call KU, is a bit less than half the size of Michigan State. Admission is relatively easy - about 92 percent who apply get in - but don't take that to mean that this is some cupcake U.

KU is either the best in the nation or very close in both special education and urban and regional planning. Its medical center is top flight and the university also deserves high praise for its psychology and political science departments. The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics acts as a not-quite presidential library for the long-time Kansas Republican senator who got closest to the White House during his 1996 run against Bill Clinton.

The campus is simply gorgeous. It's a hilly campus, although the word "hilly" doesn't seem to do justice to some of these climbs, especially in inclement weather. It's not uncommon for a first story building to actually be the top of a three-story building set in one of those hills. It does have a quirky library, which actually has half-floors (and very low ceilings).

Beyond the university, Lawrence is actually a pretty cool town. Massachusetts Avenue is the downtown drag - think of Lansing's Old Town, but larger and without the scary bits a few blocks away. Lots of quirky shops and good eats.

In fact, it's such a nice place that U.S. News and World Report named it one of the best places to retire - due in part to all the former Jayhawk students who eventually retire there.

Their Jayhawk nickname came from pre-Civil War times, when a group of abolitionists Kansas used it to describe their militia. The mythical bird is supposed to be half blue jay and half sparrow hawk, jay and hawk, Jayhawk. See?

KU is very proud of their "yell", the Rock Chalk Jayhawk chant. The chalk, in this case, is chalk rock found in western Kansas and, somewhat more famously, the White Cliffs of Dover.

KU is a very nice place. So nice, in fact, I'm hoping the Jayhawk players won't mind going back after tonight. Because I know Tom Izzo's Spartans want to send them home early.

Tickets for Indy

Tickets are still available for the men's Sweet Sixteen game against Kansas, and with Indianapolis being just a four-hour drive from Michigan, officials are expecting a very green-tinted "neutral" crowd.

Sure, you could go through StubHub or some scalper, but why? MSU, through Ticketmaster, has them on sale for $150, $120, $90 or $60, depending on your seats. It's a great deal, because that covers the Louisville-Arizona match and the Elite Eight game as well.

The Win You Didn't See

I can say with almost complete metaphysical certitude that almost everyone reading this post missed seeing Michigan State clinch a spot in the Sweet Sixteen. Why? Because CBS cut away from MSU-Southern Cal at the death to go to the Missouri-Marquette finish.

Now, if you were watching online, at a bar or you bought the March Madness package on DirecTV, this wasn't an issue. But many Spartan fans are in a tizzy over missing those last few seconds. I mean, it wasn't altogether likely that USC would pull five points out of their jacksies with just more than 10 seconds left, but it's certainly not impossible.

That hopefully won't be an issue with the next game, as the tip-off of MSU-Kansas (Friday at 9:37 p.m. ET) is a full 20 minutes before the game after it, Gonzaga-North Carolina, begins.

It reminds me, though, about the Heidi Game. I'm referring, of course, to the 1968 AFL Championship between the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders where NBC cut out with just over a minute to play and the Jets up three to go to a regularly-scheduled broadcast of the movie Heidi. The Raiders came back to win, a classic ending that no one in the eastern or central time zones saw. Now, in order to avoid another Heidi Game, networks typically stick with the sporting event until it's over. But obviously there are still kinks to work out.

The solution, however, is simple: If you've got a game that's still reasonably close and right at the end, you can't cut away from it to go to another game that's reasonably close and right at the end.

So here's hoping MSU blows KU out of the water and so the good folks at CBS have plenty of time for Gonzaga-UNC, 60 Minutes, or whatever they please.