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re: Why is SEC Basketball so bad
Posted on 12/18/16 at 8:03 pm to scrooster
Posted on 12/18/16 at 8:03 pm to scrooster
I was a student at Arkansas when the Hogs joined the SEC and started play during the 1991-1992 basketball season.
By then, basketball had been big time at Arkansas since Eddie Sutton built it up in the 1970s.
I was consistently surprised at how dinky and small most SEC basketball arenas were, except for Rupp Arena and Thompson Boling at Tennessee (I know it's been a volleyball venue for years now, just like what happened to Barnhill Arena).
Barnhill held only 9,000, but was consistently full and rocking.
Most other SEC crowds just didn't compare.
After years in Barnhill Arena, Bud Walton Arena opened in 1993, and held 20K.
Even Florida's "O-Dome" holds only 12K. And that's after their pair of titles in 2006 and 2007.
Except for Kentucky, and for brief period at Florida, basketball always seemed like an afterthought in the SEC.
That atmosphere combined with the overall decline in college basketball the last several years hasn't helped the situation one bit.
You can point to NCAA tournament viewership numbers all you want, but those numbers really don't mean much.
The NCAA basketball tournament is a cultural event, meaning lots of folks who don't care one thing about college basketball the rest of the year will watch a few NCAA tourney games because it's what everybody else is doing.
I haven't watched a regular season NFL game in years. But I always watch the Super Bowl, not because I care about NFL football, but because I'm at somebody's Super Bowl party, and I want to see the commercials.
Watching only the Super Bowl every year does NOT make me an NFL fan any more than millions of folks watching between one and 3 NCAA Tournament games per year makes them college basketball fans.
NCAA basketball overall is in decline for all sorts of reasons.
Hoops was an afterthought at pretty much ever SEC program except for Kentucky and Arkansas going back to the early 1990s.
And the bottom dropped out at Arkansas with the firing of Nolan Richardson, and now the Hogs draw like 5,000 per game.
That might change, but so far, that's what is happening right now.
By then, basketball had been big time at Arkansas since Eddie Sutton built it up in the 1970s.
I was consistently surprised at how dinky and small most SEC basketball arenas were, except for Rupp Arena and Thompson Boling at Tennessee (I know it's been a volleyball venue for years now, just like what happened to Barnhill Arena).
Barnhill held only 9,000, but was consistently full and rocking.
Most other SEC crowds just didn't compare.
After years in Barnhill Arena, Bud Walton Arena opened in 1993, and held 20K.
Even Florida's "O-Dome" holds only 12K. And that's after their pair of titles in 2006 and 2007.
Except for Kentucky, and for brief period at Florida, basketball always seemed like an afterthought in the SEC.
That atmosphere combined with the overall decline in college basketball the last several years hasn't helped the situation one bit.
You can point to NCAA tournament viewership numbers all you want, but those numbers really don't mean much.
The NCAA basketball tournament is a cultural event, meaning lots of folks who don't care one thing about college basketball the rest of the year will watch a few NCAA tourney games because it's what everybody else is doing.
I haven't watched a regular season NFL game in years. But I always watch the Super Bowl, not because I care about NFL football, but because I'm at somebody's Super Bowl party, and I want to see the commercials.
Watching only the Super Bowl every year does NOT make me an NFL fan any more than millions of folks watching between one and 3 NCAA Tournament games per year makes them college basketball fans.
NCAA basketball overall is in decline for all sorts of reasons.
Hoops was an afterthought at pretty much ever SEC program except for Kentucky and Arkansas going back to the early 1990s.
And the bottom dropped out at Arkansas with the firing of Nolan Richardson, and now the Hogs draw like 5,000 per game.
That might change, but so far, that's what is happening right now.
1
Posted on 12/18/16 at 8:17 pm to HogsOfWar
quote:I can remember when there was a waiting list on season tickets before the Stansbury/Renardo debacle. You win - you sell tickets.
And the bottom dropped out at Arkansas with the firing of Nolan Richardson, and now the Hogs draw like 5,000 per game.
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