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MSU's Breslin Center Expands With New Gilbert Pavilion

The Gilbert Pavilion, which is the expansion to the Breslin Center, was dedicated on Friday night.

 

Michigan State University cheerleaders cheered and band members played to welcome the crowd at the celebration of The Gilbert Pavilion, the new addition to the Breslin Center.  

Named after donors and MSU alumni Dan Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, and his wife Jennifer, The $47 million project began in January of 2016 and was dedicated Friday evening.

Features of the expansion include the Tom Izzo Hall of History, a trophy room, a strength and conditioning center, a Spartan uniform diorama, and a backlit dunking mural.

Deputy Athletics Director Greg Ianni spoke to the crowd, giving an excuse for why the project wasn’t finished a little sooner.

“I gotta tell you to be perfectly honest, we would have been finished with this project about two months earlier, but I couldn’t keep the head basketball coach out of the building,” he said.

He said whenever Coach Tom Izzo came to the site, everyone wanted to stop working and get their picture taken with him.

Other speakers included MSU President Lou Ann K. Simon, Dan Gilbert, Women’s Basketball Coach Suzy Merchant and Coach Izzo.

Izzo said he was honored to have the Hall of History named after him. Joined by his players on the stage, he said they would work hard to add more trophies to the trophy room. And with emotion his voice, he expressed what the moment meant to him.

“My newest superstar, my blue collar superstar as I call Miles, had a little press conference himself, and he said ‘it’s not about me, it’s about us.’ This isn’t about me, it’s about us.”

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