Michigan State Spartan Fans Invade Minneapolis for Final Four

And then the fans came in droves to return the favor.

MSU fans go off, spend big

In their green and white swag, MSU fans invaded the streets of downtown Minneapolis, where you could hear the song "Go Green, Go White" almost every street corner, in front of every bar Friday. And they came from everywhere: Michigan, California, New Mexico, Atlanta, Ohio, and even Peru.

"I feel really good about this one," said Eloy Trevino, 43, a member of the MSU, who flew more than 15 hours from Lima, Peru, to watch his Spartans in the Final Four. "It's like it's our year."

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Trevino, who lives in Chicago but works in Peru, has had to take extreme measures to watch MSU basketball this year. The games were not available in Peru, so he went to Chicago to attend the first round of the NCAA tournament.

He could not go to Washington D.C. for the Duke game because of the work. So he downloaded a March Madness app and tried to look at it there. But there were problems. He was on a plane flying to Lima. The game continued to come and go. He spent the last 40 seconds of the game and saw Kenny Goins hit the exciting 3-pointers that gave the MSU the lead.

And then the video is cut off.

"I was out of me," recalls Trevino, noting that he would have subsequently received about 40 text messages from friends blowing up his phone with the news.

MSU had beaten Duke.

Trevino, a Spartan enthusiast who coordinates the color of his closet so that no blue and yellow clothing is side by side because of his disdain for the University of Michigan, would not miss the next game of the MSU.

He went to Minneapolis saying, "I feel really good about this one."

He was not alone. All day Friday, fans expressed similar feelings, saying that this team was something special.

"They have all the tools," said Jamil Jackson, 40, of Flint, who came to Minneapolis with his twin brother, Jatavis, to watch the game. "We are big fans of Spartan."

The same is true for Pete Lentine, 65, who grew up in Detroit but now lives in Minnesota. Dressed in green and white, he sits near the door, where the team players participated in the pep rally and hammered it with the other supporters.

When asked what was her relationship with MSU, Lentine raised her tattoo of Spartan: "That's what my connection is," he said.

It turns out that he was a graduate of the MSU in 1979.

Kids, we're going to Minnesota

Kristin Geib of St. Clair Shores and her family had to travel to North Carolina for the spring break. Their daughters, Madison, 12, and Ashley, 10, were looking forward to this trip as it was an outing to the amusement park.

But at 6:11 pm on a Sunday, Geib received a strange text from her husband.

"Feel like going to Minnesota for the spring lol vacation."

After Michigan State defeated Duke on March 31 in a 68-67 thriller and qualified for the Final Four, Jim Geib, a carpenter who had never attended a Final Four game, came up with a different plan for spring break.

He would take his family to Minneapolis.

"What's going on in Minneapolis?" Geib remembered his children asking him.
"The Mall of America!" He replied.

Dad got his way. Thursday at 2 am, Geib loaded his family in his car and drove to Minneapolis by car. He took away his fortune MSU ghost helmet that he had manufactured five years ago when MSU had faced Iowa at the Big Ten Championship.

The Geibs arrived in Minneapolis Friday at 10 am, in time for dad to attend the Spartans free training at Bank Stadium. Although he was delighted to be there, he had a disappointment: they would not have let him bring his storm helmet inside.

Despite the little disappointment, Geib was still smiling. "It was on my bucket list."

And the kids went to the Mall of America.

The roommates of the college meet

Getting to the Final Four is not an easy task because it involves careful planning, money, lots of money. There are transport, hotels, holidays and, of course, expensive tickets that, depending on the position of the people, can reach thousands of people.

For the semi-finals on Saturday night, the most expensive ticket cost more than $ 5,000, the 17th row of the Delta 360 suite; the lowest ticket was about $ 140. By Saturday afternoon, tickets for the championship game went as low as $ 109 and reached $ 6,000.

For MSU graduates Kerry Quast and Patty Walters, the trip to the Final Four was a must, even though they knew it would cost them dearly.

They joke that their decision to leave was partly influenced by alcohol.

Former MSU college roommates are watching Spartan basketball games together via text messaging. Quast lives in Ohio; Walters in New Mexico. Both are 59.

When big games are played or the team wins, they kick them by sending a text message.

When Michigan State beat Duke, the friends apparently fired a few shots, considering their conversation the next morning.

"Wait, we had plane tickets last night?", He recalls jokingly, telling his friend the day after the MSU-Duke match.

Yes. They have plane tickets to Minneapolis. And it was not just alcohol talking, but the exhilarating victory over Duke that prompted one of the women to spend over $ 2,000 to reach the Final Four. The Walters flight in New Mexico costs $ 1,067; The Quast flight from Ohio was $ 800.

They paid $ 950 for basketball tickets for three games.

For Quast, this trip was a great way to retire. She retired a week before the Final Four. Walters, however, continues to work. But that was not going to stop the hardcore fan of the Spartans who has a wife in his New Mexico home decorated in the MSU backdrop.

"I told my boss that I would be gone," Walters said.

Friday afternoon, in an outdoor cafe, the two women shared a drink and grilled. They did not have to send text messages. They tinkled their glasses and said, "Go green!