The SEC Tournament is moving out of the Georgia Dome and down the road to Georgia Tech's Alexander Memorial Coliseum to be played in front of family, friends and media only.

Georgia and Kentucky, whose quarterfinal game was postponed late Friday after an apparent tornado struck the Georgia Dome and World Congress Center areas southwest of downtown Atlanta, will play at noon Saturday. That game will be followed by Tennessee and Arkansas at 6 p.m. Then Mississippi State will play the Georgia-Kentucky winner 30 minutes after the first game.

The championship game will also be played at Tech at 3 p.m. on Sunday. That's two hours later than the original scheduled time but the SEC wanted to build in "an opportune turnaround" for the teams playing late Saturday.

Admission for all remaining games is limited to players' families and anyone holding a working credential. That means that tens of thousands of fans in town for the event will be turned away.

"We're working on a refund situation right now," said SEC spokesman Charles Bloom. "Hopefully they'll realize what happened tonight. We realize the passion is there and they want to see their teams play. But we had a significant event here."

A tornado touched down in the area of the Georgia Dome around 9:40 p.m. Friday night as Alabama and Mississippi State competed in overtime of their quarterfinal matchup. The game was stopped after the Dome roof shook and debris - including nuts and bolts and washers - fell to the ground from the tarpaulin-covered ceiling. The game was halted and the teams retreated to their respective locker rooms while fans in attendance were encouraged to remain in their seats.

The teams returned to the floor and completed their game with 2:11 remaining in the overtime period. Mississippi State won 69-67. But Dome personnel decided to postpone the Georgia-Kentucky contest because of unsafe conditions.

"When the first storms came through we had an initial report, a preliminary report, that the Dome was safe to play in," Bloom said. "So we sent the two teams, Alabama and Mississippi State, back on the floor. Further storms were coming in and there was a fear that the storms might aggravate any problems that had occurred during the initial storm. So the feeling was postponing that game was in the best interest of everybody involved."

SEC officials and administrators from Georgia and Kentucky held an all-night meeting in a reception room at the Georgia Dome to work out the logistics of moving the event. They convened until shortly after 4 a.m.

"We had and still have a lot of logistical problems," Bloom said. "There's still going to be the use of a lot of emergency personnel around the city in the morning and there is some difficulty there as well as accommodating the many fans we have here at the tournament. It's a limited seat facility that we're moving into."

Georgia coach Dennis Felton originally expressed concerns about trying to play two games in one day but both schools eventually relented on that point.

"I don't ever remember dealing with anything like this," said Georgia athletics director Damon Evans, emerging exhausted at 4 a.m. "Each school had different situations to resolve. But applaud the SEC and the Georgia Dome for working it all out."

There was even some discussion of canceling the event altogether, "out of respect for the damage in the city and what emergency personnel may still be in use," Bloom said. "But it was decided let's try to get the tournament done."