“HA-OOH! HA-OOH! HA-OOH!” the fans answered.

With the chant, head coach Tom Izzo continued the 300-themed event, and appeared from behind the shields of his players as King Leonidas, complete with an armored suit and make-up to form a grizzled beard and gash above his eye.

“The way I see it, it beats the hell out of riding in on a motorcycle or a horse, coming down from the ceiling, or anything else we’ve done in the last couple of years,” Izzo told the crowd.

Izzo addressed that the Spartans, with every key player returning and a top-flight recruiting class coming in, are once again on the national radar as a title contender.

“People have asked me, you got the bulls-eye back on your back, is that good or bad, does that make you nervous?” Izzo relayed to the crowd. “I feel so good about having a bulls-eye behind my back that I feel so excited, and I hope you’re as excited as I am and we are. We have a chance to have one hell of a year.”

First year women’s basketball head coach Suzy Merchant, dressed as a Greek goddess and carried in by five MSU wrestlers, said her team is looking forward to a solid season as well and that they will fight until the very end.

“They’ll fight for you, the honor of you and to make you proud,” she said. “We hope that one day there will just be one, and it will be the very last season that we can play basketball in April and we’ll be the only one standing on that battlefield.”

After a brief eight-minute Green and White scrimmage by the women, the men took the court for a scrimmage of their own, and started the show off quickly in warm-ups.

Layup lines turned into a slam dunk contest as nearly every Spartan, including Neitzel, threw down highlight-reel slams.

Freshman guard Durrell Summers went between the legs for a dunk to pump up the crowd, but junior forward Marquise Gray stole the show as he leapt over Neitzel, junior guard Travis Walton and freshman guard Mike Kebler for a dunk of his own.

In the scrimmage, the Spartans showed the ability that has them marked as one of the top teams in the Big Ten, as the Green defeated the White 51-45. Summers led the Green with 19 points and Neitzel added 14. Gray led the White with 14 points, including two three-pointers and an alley-oop slam off a pass from Walton. Freshman guard Chris Allen also added 13 points for the White.

Although Izzo was disappointed that the event wasn’t held at Breslin Center, due to scheduling conflicts, he said he was happy with the turnout at Munn.

“I was hoping this would be the year that we fill the Breslin, but at the same time it’s a unique setting,” he said. “I think it worked, it’s kind of fun to be down here on the ice, another sport where someone is hitting each other — that always excites me.”

As for the show on the court, Izzo said he was pleased with the athleticism his team displayed.

“I think we’re going to have a lot more exciting offensive team,” he said.

“If we can get them to check somebody, you put that combination together and then with our depth – that’s why I think we have a chance to be a real good basketball team.”