If you want to understand the excitement of Michigan State University's NCAA Tournament run, just ask any member of the Spartan Brass, MSU's pep band.

Performing at men’s and women’s basketball games, women’s volleyball games and men’s hockey games, pep band members often have a front-row seat to all the season's ups and downs. (MSU's Spartan Marching Band is the group you see on the field at football games ― the pep band typically plays at other sporting events.)

Of this season's 101 members, 29 musicians ― the maximum number allowed by the NCAA ― traveled with the Michigan State men’s basketball team through the tournament season, from the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament in Cleveland and the Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight round in Atlanta, where the Spartans lost to Auburn University 70-64, exiting the tournament.

Arris Golden has been director of the Spartan Brass since 2023. Her passion for athletics is rooted in her days in the band as a student at the University of North Carolina, including a trip to the Final Four: “It's such a different and intense experience.”

Golden, who holds a doctoral degree in musical arts from MSU, is also assistant professor of music and assistant director of bands at MSU, and serves as associate director of MSU's Spartan Marching Band. Before that, she was at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and spent 18 years as a band director at public schools in North Carolina.