UGA blog finds new home
Morning all. As I’ve said a couple of times this week, we’re converting this blog over to a WordPress platform and it will be a permanent move the first of next week.
Those of you who are regulars probably know that I’m not what you’d call techno-wizard when it comes to these things. But from what I understand the technology offered in this new format should make the blogging and commenting experience better for all. Of course, I’ll be learning as we go along, too. But I’m hoping to provide more pictures and video and things like that which should bring the blog more to life.
Of course, this blog is nothing without all you guys so I want to heartily invite (read: beg) you to come over to the new site by CLICKING HERE ON THE NEW ADDRESS and save it in your browsers. As of Monday, Feb. 23rd, this will be the permanent home of the UGA blog you so love or, in the case of some of you, love to loathe. If you’d prefer to copy and paste or just memorize, the new address is: http://blogs.ajc.com/uga-sports-blog/.
See at the new place!
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 07
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
SEC tourney a great event
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m sitting over here at the media workroom in the Georgia Dome. The 2-4 p.m. window is designated as “writing time.” But as you may have noticed, I haven’t stopped writing since I got here.
The early afternoon was practice and interview time for Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky and South Carolina. Georgia, Auburn, LSU and Tennessee are up later. The Dogs practice from 3-4 p.m., then will come to the podium and answer a bunch of questions from a bunch of writers and media types from 4-4:30 p.m.
Forgetting all that, I love the SEC tournament. I don’t know how many of these I’ve covered but my first one was in 1989 in Knoxville (Bama beats Florida in final). But it was in the 1990s that this event really took off.
In the mid-1990s, the league finally figured it had a good thing here and started to move the tournament around to bigger venues. And it sorely needed to.
That’s shortly after Arkansas joined the league and the Hogs brought their “soooooiiiieee Pig” and all their fans — along with some pretty darn good teams — over from the Southwest Conference.
Man, I’ll never forget the 1995 tournament, the first one at the Georgia Dome, and 250,301 fans, mostly UK and Arkansas, showed up over the four days. Not surprisingly, Kentucky and Arkansas ended up in the finals and the Cats won a thriller, 95-93 in overtime. The Hogs, however, got the last laugh and went on and won the NCAA championship.
If you’ve never attended this event, you should really try. It’s a lot of great basketball back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Most of these teams, especially this year, are playing for their postseason lives. Some wild things usually happen.
Too bad Georgia hasn’t been able to make more of a run here in Atlanta. The Dogs are 1-6 in their last seven opening games. They went 1-1 in 1996 in New Orleans, losing to Mississippi State in the semis. The next year Georgia lost to Kentucky in the finals, got a No. 3 seed in the Charlotte regional, then promptly lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Chattanooga.
So who do you think will win it this year? Kentucky has the most tournament titles — 25 — but comes in this year as a No. 4 seed. It’s the first time the Wildcats have played on the first day since league expansion in 1992.
Florida hasn’t played that well lately. Tennessee is hot. Arkansas is playing good at the moment and needs to win. Vandy never plays well here.
How ‘bout them Dawgs? Any chance?
