Spartans, Falcons grateful to be playing close to home

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to regular fans that the NCAA Tournament has trouble drawing fans. That’s why the NCAA allows host teams to play on their home floor if they qualify for the tournament. It’s to make as much money as possible.

But the selection committee also tries to keep teams as close to home as possible. They did a good job for the games in Louisville, pairing MSU with Bowling Green, two teams that traditionally travel well, and Kentucky, which is about 90 minutes away, and Liberty, which is located in Virginia and the furtherst away from Louisville at about an eight-hour drive time.

That should help create a festive atmosphere at Freedom Hall.

Naturally, this has both members of the Spartans and Falcons excited to be able to play in front of their fans instead of having to go West and rely on alumni in the area.

“(Louisville is) an easier place to get to for our fans,” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said. “If they want to make the trip, it’s certainly something they can do by getting in their car, which is a positive in today’s economy. I think it’s a great place to go.”

The Spartans received tremendous fan support in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Tournament. At times, MSU fans who were there watching other games outnumbered the amount of fans that were there for a team currently playing.
“Kentucky’s not far from my home (Dayton, Ohio) and not far from Michigan, so hopefully we get a good crowd to follow us on the road,” senior forward Aisha Jefferson said.

In Bowling Green’s last NCAA Tournament appearance (in 2007 in East Lansing), Falcons fans painted Breslin Center orange and black and were a key cog in Bowling Green’s upset of No. 2-seed Vanderbilt in the second round. It was the same case the following season when Bowling Green met MSU in the WNIT.

“It’s a little bit farther than the Breslin Center, but I do believe we’ll travel,” Falcons coach Curt Miller said. “We have some of the best fans in women’s basketball, I can’t understate that, they are fantastic.”

For the Falcons, who are light on NCAA Tournament experience (their three seniors who were on the team then played only minutes in the 2007 run), having the support of their fans means a lot.

“We’ll have tons of fans there,” Bowling Green forward Lauren Prochaska said. “It’ll be great to have them support us. It’ll feel like we’re in Bowling Green, so that’ll calm us down, but we also know that Michigan State is going to bring a lot of people. So hopefully it’s a huge crowd and an awesome atmosphere to play in.”

Miller said the team’s fans helped to propel them to the MAC Tournament Championship in Cleveland. He estimated that out of the 3,674 in attendance, about two-thirds were wearing orange and black.

“We’ll find out exactly what it means to be only two hours away and what four-and-a-half hours will be,” Miller said. “I would not be shocked if we had mid-hundreds down there with us.

“If we walked out there to more than a thousand, that would just be special for our kids.”

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