All this talk about playing basketball in football stadiums reminded me of the craziest singular occurrence to ever happen during my time as an MSU fan. It happened at another domed football stadium while basketball was being played, during the SEC tournament in fact.
It was March 14th, 2008. We were watching MSU play Alabama in one of the first two rounds, Rick Stansbury was roaming the court near his bench area, most likely signaling for "motion". Kentucky fans were beginning to coat the stadium in blue, filling in the seats (as they do) for their upcoming first round game, which was next in line for the night. The contest was nearing it's conclusion and we were ahead, surely confident we would win with a few seconds left. The story starts when Alabama hits a 3 pointer to tie the game as the clock ran out, (ironically) thankfully keeping the large crowd inside the stadium walls for extra basketball.
During overtime we suddenly heard a "freight train" type sound that for us Southerners, was all too familiar. The walls were shaking, the cloth roof was waving, nails and other scraps of metal were falling from the ceiling, the lights flickered, the giant scoreboard hanging from the ceiling was swaying back and forth. Players stopped at first, and then immediately ran for the tunnels. I seem to remember Ben Hansbrough being the most freaked out for some reason. Next was the crowd in the stands, who immediately headed for the concourse. On the way out we looked up towards the empty nosebleeds of the other side of the dome and saw flashes of lightning. That's when we realized that a section of the dome wall had fallen out, and we had just been hit directly by a tornado.
As crazy as the moment was, I had been in tornadoes in the past and should have known exactly what that sound was. For some reason it didn't register to me until then.
Well, after a long delay (maybe short I can't remember), they decided to finish the game in what we found out later, was a structurally compromised building. We won and left the stadium to find an absolute disaster area directly outside the dome. I have no idea how many people would have been killed if Mykal Riley would not have hit a last second shot to tie it up and send the game to overtime. I know me and my friends would have been outside heading to the truck, confident that we could handle the Cats the next day.
Now the Irony deepens. The SEC tournament was continued at Georgia Tech, an arena with ACC writing on the floor. Only several hundred tickets were allowed to enter the game. Some of my friends had student tickets that granted entrance. I did not. We ended up sneaking into some open door in the bowels of that arena, through the office halls and locker rooms, and found the tunnel entering the game. I immediately see two young Stansbury boys toweling off Charles Rhodes on the bench, their father signaling for "motion", Randy Stewart firing off 3's. I knew we had found the right spot to finish our run to the championship that day. In unsurprising fashion for MSU basketball during that time, we immediately drop the game to a pathetic Georgia team, on an ACC campus. As astonishing as the whole tornado situation was, the Georgia Bulldogs ended up winning that tournament. A team who finished at 4-12, last in the East, won the SEC tournament on an ACC floor, in THEIR RIVALS arena.
A weekend I will never forget, Who was there? What are your stories?
I love you all,
GOJ
It was March 14th, 2008. We were watching MSU play Alabama in one of the first two rounds, Rick Stansbury was roaming the court near his bench area, most likely signaling for "motion". Kentucky fans were beginning to coat the stadium in blue, filling in the seats (as they do) for their upcoming first round game, which was next in line for the night. The contest was nearing it's conclusion and we were ahead, surely confident we would win with a few seconds left. The story starts when Alabama hits a 3 pointer to tie the game as the clock ran out, (ironically) thankfully keeping the large crowd inside the stadium walls for extra basketball.
During overtime we suddenly heard a "freight train" type sound that for us Southerners, was all too familiar. The walls were shaking, the cloth roof was waving, nails and other scraps of metal were falling from the ceiling, the lights flickered, the giant scoreboard hanging from the ceiling was swaying back and forth. Players stopped at first, and then immediately ran for the tunnels. I seem to remember Ben Hansbrough being the most freaked out for some reason. Next was the crowd in the stands, who immediately headed for the concourse. On the way out we looked up towards the empty nosebleeds of the other side of the dome and saw flashes of lightning. That's when we realized that a section of the dome wall had fallen out, and we had just been hit directly by a tornado.
As crazy as the moment was, I had been in tornadoes in the past and should have known exactly what that sound was. For some reason it didn't register to me until then.
Well, after a long delay (maybe short I can't remember), they decided to finish the game in what we found out later, was a structurally compromised building. We won and left the stadium to find an absolute disaster area directly outside the dome. I have no idea how many people would have been killed if Mykal Riley would not have hit a last second shot to tie it up and send the game to overtime. I know me and my friends would have been outside heading to the truck, confident that we could handle the Cats the next day.
Now the Irony deepens. The SEC tournament was continued at Georgia Tech, an arena with ACC writing on the floor. Only several hundred tickets were allowed to enter the game. Some of my friends had student tickets that granted entrance. I did not. We ended up sneaking into some open door in the bowels of that arena, through the office halls and locker rooms, and found the tunnel entering the game. I immediately see two young Stansbury boys toweling off Charles Rhodes on the bench, their father signaling for "motion", Randy Stewart firing off 3's. I knew we had found the right spot to finish our run to the championship that day. In unsurprising fashion for MSU basketball during that time, we immediately drop the game to a pathetic Georgia team, on an ACC campus. As astonishing as the whole tornado situation was, the Georgia Bulldogs ended up winning that tournament. A team who finished at 4-12, last in the East, won the SEC tournament on an ACC floor, in THEIR RIVALS arena.
A weekend I will never forget, Who was there? What are your stories?
I love you all,
GOJ
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