{"id":429406,"date":"2018-03-09T12:46:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/?p=429406"},"modified":"2018-03-09T12:46:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:46:32","slug":"great-tournament-games-deserve-better-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/great-tournament-games-deserve-better-environments\/","title":{"rendered":"Great tournament games deserve better environments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-429407\" src=\"http:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18-1024x384.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18-1024x384.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18-150x56.jpg 150w, https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18-300x113.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18-768x288.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18-600x225.jpg 600w, https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts-3-9-18.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Auburn and Alabama have faced off in basketball three times this season.<\/p>\n<p>They played in front of an awesome and racaus sellout crowd in Tuscaloosa.<br \/>\nThen they played in front of a sellout crowd in Auburn Arena, which has become the second best basketball environment in the SEC.<\/p>\n<p>Today they played the rubber game of the season series in St. Louis in front of a crowd that was mostly biding its time until the Kentucky game tipped off.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s less of an indictment of basketball fans in this state and more the failure of the SEC to take into consideration the fans when choosing a location for its conference tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC is not alone. The ACC has left its roots in the Carolinas to play its tournament in Brooklyn. The Big 10 and the Big East both decided to play at Madison Square Garden, even though some fans had to travel more than 1,000 miles to get to the tournament site.<br \/>\nTonight, Duke and North Carolina will predictably play in Brooklyn. It\u2019s akin to McGill-Toolen and Murphy having to travel to Dothan to play each other in the state basketball regional finals.<\/p>\n<p>The solution for adding excitement and doing right by college fans is to choose a central location and establish a tradition for the conference tournament. In the SEC that means Nashville. But Memphis or Atlanta could certainly fit the bill.<br \/>\nThe outstanding teams playing in the tournament deserve an environment to match.<\/p>\n<p>For Threaded Fasteners, I\u2019m Randy Kennedy with Nuts and Bolts of the Game.<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-429406-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts030918.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts030918.mp3\">http:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/NutsBolts030918.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Auburn and Alabama have faced off in basketball three times this season. They played in front of an awesome and racaus sellout crowd in Tuscaloosa. <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/great-tournament-games-deserve-better-environments\/\" title=\"Great tournament games deserve better environments\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4489,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,106,33,176],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-429406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-nuts-and-bolts","7":"category-on-the-air","8":"category-sec","9":"category-top"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429408,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429406\/revisions\/429408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}