Spartans have 2 teams in Final Four

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Rob Dare and his friends crowded around a TV, screaming as Michigan State competed for a spot in the Final Four.\nThe students weren't watching the men's team, however. For the first time, Dare and his buddies were tuned in to cheer on the Spartan women.\nMichigan State will have its men's and women's teams in the Final Four this weekend and Dare, as much as it surprises him, will be interested in both games.\n"Everybody follows the men around here, but now people are jumping on the women's bandwagon -- me included," the sophomore said Wednesday. "I was really impressed with them against Stanford. Me and my friends couldn't believe how good they could shoot. Maybe we should've started following them earlier."\nMichigan State has gone hoops crazy, a fact that could be seen and heard on and around campus.\nMerchandise was hawked on street corners under makeshift tents, and congratulatory messages could be seen on businesses' marquees.\nA green-and-white Spartans blanket attached to a flag pole flapped in the wind in the back of a pickup truck on the eastern edge of campus.\nAs if a partly cloudy, 70-degree day weren't enough to create a buzz in the winter-weary college town, two Final Four-bound basketball teams provided an extra boost of excitement.\nFor the past two weeks, Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon has crisscrossed the country to give equal time to the Spartans in both the men's and women's NCAA tournaments.\nThere's no rest for Simon now.\n"It's a great problem to have," Simon said in interview with The Associated Press a few minutes after the women's team beat Stanford Tuesday night. "It's going to be a little easier on me this weekend because the sites will be closer together and the games don't conflict.\n"I can't wait to get to the pep rallies and other events we have planned before each game."\nSimon will watch the men play North Carolina Saturday in St. Louis, then she will travel 250 miles to Indianapolis for the women's game Sunday against Tennessee.\nIf both Michigan State teams pull off upsets, Simon will be back in St. Louis Monday for the men's national championship before wrapping up her whirlwind tour Tuesday night in Indianapolis for the women's title game.\nJust six schools have sent both men's and women's teams to the Final Four, but the feat has now happened four years in a row.\nGeorgia was the first to do it in 1983, and Duke followed in 1999 before Oklahoma, Texas, Connecticut and now Michigan State had two teams advance to the semifinals from 2002-05. Last year the Huskies were the first to have both men's and women's teams win national championships in the same season.\nMichigan State coach Tom Izzo said superior facilities, successful recruiting and support from the administration likely helped each school pull off the accomplishment.\nAt Michigan State, the head coaches of both basketball programs are close, and the players are, too.\nIzzo said he spoke with women's coach Joanne P. McCallie Wednesday afternoon, a day after he gathered his players to watch her team topple Stanford.\nWhen the women clinched a share of the Big Ten title last month at the Breslin Center, an arena both teams share, some players from the men's team rushed the court alongside other fans.\n"That was an amazing, special moment for our program and this community when the guys did that," McCallie said. "They realize we all sweat the same, we all bleed green, and it says 'State' on both of our jerseys."\nAlthough the women are a top-seeded team and the men are a fifth-seeded squad, both have had to scramble to win some games en route to the Final Four.\nThe men beat Kentucky in double overtime Sunday in a regional final, and the women escaped the second round with a 61-59 win over Southern California. Both will face traditional powerhouses in the Final Four: North Carolina for the men and Tennessee for the women.\nMichigan State's women had not advanced past the second round before this season, whereas the men have won two national championships and are going to the Final Four for the fourth time in seven years -- one more trip than any other team since 1999.\nMichigan State will open Breslin this weekend so fans can watch the games on the oversized monitors above the court for free.\nThe College Store, a local store specializing in Michigan State paraphernalia, is hoping soon to have "This Dance Is For Couples Only" T-shirts featuring both teams available for sale.\nIf such a shirt were on the racks Wednesday, Ronda Bokram would have bought it.\n"I'll be back," said Bokram, 49, of East Lansing.\nGov. Jennifer Granholm, who attended the Stanford game, plans to travel to both the men's and women's games this weekend with her daughter, Kate.\n"The unparalleled sense of pride over the MSU Spartans is permeating the entire state," Granholm said. "The nation has an opportunity to see the character of our student-athletes, our coaches"