Returning from Madison Square Garden early Wednesday morning, Nittany Nation President George Beatty had one thing on his mind.
Instead of going to his apartment, Beatty decided to stay and wait for the ticket offices to open at 8 a.m. Wednesday to buy a ticket for today's National Invitational Tournament final between Penn State and Baylor at Madison Square Garden.
"We brought blankets out from my car," Beatty (junior-information science and technology) said. "Most people were trying to sleep. I got about two hours."
Beatty was just one of the more than 2,000 Penn State students who secured tickets for tonight's game as the Nittany Lion fan nation prepares for another trip to the Big Apple.
A throng of white-clad fans packed 20 buses on Tuesday, cheering the Lions on during their defeat of Notre Dame in the semifinals. Today, the number of buses in the convoy will jump to 33, with 25 of those reserved for students, after fans gobbled up 1,200 student tickets by noon Wednesday, prompting Penn State to secure more tickets before a student ticket sellout, Penn State basketball spokesman Brian Siegrist said.
Though Penn State's ticket allotment is sold out, fans can buy remaining tickets through Madison Square Garden or through Ticketmaster.com.
Evan Smith (junior-marketing), one of the students who traveled to New York for the semifinals, opted to stay with the other diehards and wait for ticket sales to begin and snagged a ticket for the championship game.
Smith agreed the late return affected his class attendance Wednesday, but he did not delve into which class or classes he missed. Smith said the trip to the Penn State- Saint Joseph's game last year "never had the amount of people" that Tuesday's trip had.
Smith acknowledged he passed time by watching the video of Penn State's 72-68 victory over Michigan State Feb. 1 in East Lansing, Mich.
Chris Grassi had a different way to occupy himself.
"My group played the name game," Grassi (senior-supply chain and information systems) said. "Everyone knew it was going to be a long trip."
Along with Smith and Beatty, Grassi also confirmed he bought a ticket. Beatty said although workers arrived at the Bryce Jordan Center office around 6 to 6:30 a.m., tickets were not sold until just after 8 a.m.
After the trip to the semifinal game, the buses didn't return to State College until 3:45 a.m. Luckily for Beatty, he had no classes the next day.
Beatty acknowledged that because of the long trip, the environment on the bus was somewhat subdued.
But the atmosphere wasn't quiet at a rest stop on the way to New York.
When Abby Crumbling (freshman-nursing) looked out at the Penn State faithful exiting the buses, all she could see was an endless amount of white shirts.
As pom poms and rally towels were passed out to the Penn State basketball faithful, Crumbling and Smith understood just how large the crowd was.
"Everyone was wearing white," Smith said. "We took over an entire bus stop."
