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Checking in from Nashville with early Wednesday observations from the tournament

Drew Franklinby:Drew Franklin•03/12/25•

DrewFranklinKSR

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Good afternoon from Bridgestone Arena, the downtown home of the Nashville Predators, the CMA Awards, and the 2025 SEC Tournament. I’m here for the latter, hoping for a long weekend with your University of Kentucky Wildcats playing in the first conference tournament under Mark Pope, a coach who cares to be there.

On that note, the coach who doesn’t care about the SEC Tournament won his first-round game with Arkansas to open up this year’s SEC Tournament. The Razorbacks beat South Carolina in the nooner, although Arkansas nearly blew a 20-point second-half lead. John Calipari and his bench looked panicked down the stretch, an all too familiar image for the many Kentucky fans in the building. Most, if not all, fans in blue cheered on the Gamecocks as Lamont Paris almost beat Calipari for a fourth time, only to come up just short in the end.

Oddly, Arkansas intentionally missed a free throw while only being up by three in the end. Calipari’s explanation didn’t make sense on the SEC Network set:

Enough about that guy. We’ll check back in with him and Arkansas in the first game on Thursday. Now, some other notes from the first session in Nashville.

Blue got in, per tradition

As expected, Big Blue Nation already made its presence known on the day before the Wildcats’ first game. I’m not good at estimating crowd numbers, so I snapped this photo from my seat during Arkansas-South Carolina to illustrate the blue in the first session. Go Cats.

Texas leads Vandy at the half

Playing in front of me now, Texas and Vanderbilt are halfway through the second game of the tournament, with the Longhorns leading the hometown team by 15 points, 41-26. I say Vandy is the hometown team, but only a handful of Vandy students are in the student section, and I can’t find many Vandy fans anywhere in the stands.

One Vandy fan, KSR’s Shannon The Dude, who is credentialed for his first SEC Tournament, was ecstatic to see the Commodores play. That excitement is waning at halftime.

Mario is excited

It’s KSR Mario’s first trip to Broadway and his first SEC Tournament. To say he is excited is an understatement. I lost him as soon as we got into the arena, but I can only imagine he is exploring every corner and taking it all in like a kid on Christmas morning. The SEC Tournament feels like Christmas to me, too.

Thanks to GRREC for hosting KSR in Bowling Green

Big thanks to Green River Regional Educational Cooperative for allowing KSR to broadcast from its facility in Bowling Green on Wednesday morning so we could break up the drive to Nashville. Not only did GRREC provide space for the show, but we were also fed breakfast and lunch, plus swag bags, KSR branding on the TVs, and a guest appearance by “Meemaw,” our friend Aaron Flener’s 93-year-old grandmother. Meemaw revealed her SEC Tournament bracket projection before she left the show early to get to Bridgestone Arena for the first tip-off.

The SEC completely took over Broadway, even the streetlights

The Southeastern Conference signage is common all over downtown Nashville this time of year, but I think it’s the first time I’ve seen SEC streetlights in Nashville. These are neat:

(Photo via @SEC on Instagram)

While we’re talking traffic, parking took forever once we got in. We ended up on the 10th floor of a parking garage with only a few spots left, and that was at 1 p.m. Good luck if you’re driving in.

You can’t play the SEC Tournament without Tammy

This is my fifteenth SEC Tournament going back to the first one in Nashville in 2010, when Bledsoe, Cousins, and Wall forced OT to beat Mississippi State in the championship game. (You remember.) Through all of the years since, Tammy Pickett and her fluorescent UK shirts have been a fixture at each tournament. Seeing her right away today set the tone for another exciting tournament.

Now, back to Day 1 of the best week of the year. I’ll check back in soon. Go Cats.

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