Lots of empty midcourt seats at the UK/Marquette game...

[Brutius]

where is the "big blue nation"?

 

[Hanmudog]

About the SEC allowing a tornado to hit the Georgia Dome where they almost certainly would have won the SEC tournament otherwise because thier crowd would have willed them to victory or so I have heard.</p>

 

[RebelBruiser]

Well, I will say that they do a good job of creating a home court advantage. The tornado hitting the Dome and the tourney having to be moved to a facility where only family and friends were allowed was a huge disadvantage to UK. Part of the reason they are so successful in the tourney is because they have so many fans come buy up the tickets. The tornado took that away from them. Essentially they are just mad that they couldn't do a first come first served seating at GT, where their crazed fans could camp out all night and take all the tickets.

 

[Hanmudog]

The reason that they have done so well historically is because they have had really good teams. This team is not a really good team. I don't think the game being moved impacted the UK team any more than the other teams. MSU and Tennessee had a bunch of fans in Atlanta too but I have not seen any complaining from them about moving the game. I just don't know what some of the UK fans really expected the SEC to do in the situation.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Negating an advantage is not the same as creating a disadvantage.</p>

 

[RebelBruiser]

You're right. They have had good teams, but they are definitely helped by their fans. I don't care how many fans UT or MSU took to Atlanta, it was nowhere near the number UK had and the number they have every year.

So I can see where they are coming from. If you can create a home court advantage, which I guarantee they would've done, especially against UGA, then they would've had a better chance of winning. I think they are taking it too far in their complaints, but they are definitely the team that was hurt the most by the move to the new arena, because it took away one of their cards that they always have in the SEC tourney, and that's the home court advantage they create.

 

[Hanmudog]

State and UT were not playing UK so the number of fans they brought is irrelevant. We certainly would have outdrawn Georgia and UT would have outdrawn Arkansas but neither has gone on a 5 page message board thread about withdrawing from the SEC because of the unfairness of it all. There were a shitload of MSU and UT fans in Atlanta last weekend.

 

[RebelBruiser]

I was in Atlanta as well, and there were a lot of other fans, but I can guarantee no one had nearly as many as UK. No one ever does. In fact, Arkansas is usually 2nd, though UT could've pushed them this year.

And I agree that it's not worth the rant that they are going on about it. All I'm saying is that they do have a point that they were the team most likely to be hurt by a venue change and a crowd limit.

 

[Coastdog28]

I kinda hope Kentucky wins. Marquette is flopping like there is no tomorrow.