(Photo: Patrick Semansky, AP)
The band will play on.
It'll just have to do so by bus.
Michigan State's pep band and cheer team have to make the trip to Minneapolis for the Final Four via chartered bus, because the team plane is too crowded with additional athletic-department and basketball program staff, university trustees and other dignitaries.
The band, Spartan Brass, and the cheer team were on the team's chartered flights for the previous two stops in the NCAA Tournament, in Des Moines, Iowa, and Washington, D.C. There are 43 members of the band and cheer team traveling party.