With the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the NCAA Tournament's trip to East Lansing is considered a success on all fronts.
MSU hosted the first and second rounds of the women's tournament at Breslin Center this past Saturday through Tuesday and led all eight cities hosting opening-round games in attendance.
Reported attendance
• East Lansing — 21,340
• Pittsburgh — 21,181
• Hartford — 20,714
• Raleigh — 12,372
• Minneapolis — 12,218
• Austin — 11,697
• Stanford — 4,111 (No reported first-round attendance)
• Los Angeles — 3,386
• Along with the attendance numbers, approximately 200 members of the media held credentials, according to MSU Sports Information.
Not included in that number are the 50 credentials for ESPN, which televised all six games from Breslin.
• Only one upset occurred in East Lansing, as No. 7-seed Bowling Green took out No. 2-seed Vanderbilt, 59-56, to advance to the Sweet 16. Despite being the lower seed, Bowling Green had a decided home-court advantage, as many of the Falcons' faithful used East Lansing's close proximity to their advantage.
Bowling Green also used the partisan crowd to its advantage Sunday, erasing a 14-point first-half deficit to knock off Oklahoma State.
• On the surface, only one thing went wrong — one of the shot clocks stopped working in the final minute of the game between Vanderbilt and Bowling Green.
This caused a delay of several minutes but was eventually repaired, and the game went on.
• One of the more exciting things of the weekend was the handful of mascots that traveled to East Lansing for two games of basketball action.
Delaware State's hornet and the Oklahoma State cowboy both made favorable impressions, as did the enthusiastic Delaware State band, which drew several ovations from the crowd for its fun antics, especially for its loud heckling of Vanderbilt players whenever they committed a traveling violation.
• One of the auxiliary gyms was completely transformed from gymnasium to media room.
The floor was covered by NCAA-standard blue carpet with tables and curtains everywhere. One side was used for working media, while the other was used for press conferences.
It was so different that it didn't even resemble the look of a gym.
