Women's basketball reporter Ethan Conley embarked on a five-day road trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Spartans went 1-1 during the trip.

There's something strangely endearing about Minnesota's Williams Arena. Sure, it's just an old field house, and all the cheap seats are obstructed by pillars, and half the crowd doesn't face the floor and it's poorly lit … but the place has some soul. As loud as the 10,000-strong crowd was on Sunday, I can only imagine what it'd be like during a men's game against a big rival.

The banners for retired jerseys are also infinitely cool. Rather than just a piece of cloth with a number, they have huge posters celebrating all the former Golden Gophers greats.

I'll take a giant poster of Kevin McHale (complete with his weird skeletal structure, short shorts and those cool knee-high striped socks they wore in the '70s and '80s) over what Breslin Center has any day of the week.

How about some lists?

Top three statements heard by patrons at The Library Bar and Grill, a bar near the Minnesota campus, in a post-hockey game splendor:

1. "Yeah, I'm in a halfway house now. It's cool, I can still, like, go out to bars and stuff."

2. "Dance, dance to halftime? What the **** does that mean? Like between quarters? I don't get it."

(Either the common Minnesota student has no concept of time signature, or "Fall Out Boy" is way above everyone's head.)

3. "Yeah, Gooooophers! Stick it to those chumps, eh!"

(I don't have a snarky comment on this one. People in Minnesota just love their hockey.)

Top four most repeated songs heard on the radio while driving through Wisconsin:

1. "Best of You" — Foo Fighters (three times)

2. "The Heart of the Matter" — Don Henley (another three)

2. "Everlong" — Foo Fighters (twice)

3. "My Hero" — Foo Fighters (twice again)

I imagine there would have been even more Henley songs if it wasn't so damn cold; I think there's legislation in place that says you can only play "Boys of Summer" between May and September.

Obviously, the good people of America's dairy capital love their drummer-turned-lead singer types, especially if the aforementioned drummer-turned-lead singers played in some of the most iconic bands of their respective decades. We were about two Phil Collins songs away from a trifecta.

Ethan Conley can be reached at conleyet@msu.edu.