Road Trip and Free Ticket: Northwestern at Michigan St.

For the fourth consecutive weekend, I went on a road trip from Chicago. Three weeks ago I drove to Ann Arbor and the last two weekends I spent time in Indianapolis. Yesterday, I drove to East Lansing, MI for the Northwestern at Michigan St. men’s basketball game. As was the case when I drove to Ann Arbor, I wanted to see Northwestern play at Michigan St. I had not seen a game at the Breslin Center. After last night, I have attended a game at nine Big Ten men’s basketball venues.

Obtaining Tickets
I arrived in East Lansing around 6:30 pm – just in time for the 7 pm tip off. I parked by Spartan Stadium for $10 and walked towards the Breslin Center ticket office. The line to buy tickets was about 30 people deep, so I asked at the Will Call window what was the cheapest ticket for the game - $13. I now knew my price to beat.

However, I failed to negotiate well at first. On my way to East Lansing, I checked craigslist.org. Most of the ads were looking for tickets and the ones that were selling tickets were asking $60 or higher per ticket. Since I failed to research the event before driving over, I was nervous when I approached my first scalper. For some reason my first offer was $20 (low compared to craiglist.org, but I should have offered $10). Instead the scalper responded with $30 and I rejected the offer. I immediately walked away realizing my mistake and he followed me – probably to accept my $20. But, immediately I found a guy who was holding up a ticket. I asked him how much he wanted and he said nothing…it’s free. He handed me the ticket and I told him he made my day.

The Game
Michigan St. could not put Northwestern away during the first half as they only had a two-point lead heading into halftime. But they started the second half with a bang – going on an 18-4 run with the highlight of the run (and the game) being Chris Allen’s spectacular dunk.

Northwestern’s John Shurna scored a career-high 31 points for Northwestern but that was not enough as Michigan St. won 79-70. With the win, Michigan St. is now 9-0 in Big Ten play for the first time ever and Tom Izzo passed Bobby Knight for best winning percentage for Big Ten coaches who have coached at least 10 years in the Big Ten.

The Drive Home
As soon as the game ended, I drove back to Chicago. For a two hour college basketball game, I left Chicago at 1:30 pm and arrived back home at 11:30 pm.