SEC Tournament Delayed Due to Storm

In the middle of an SEC Tournament basketball game between Mississippi State and Alabama, a severe storm ripped two panels off the side of the Georgia Dome, and punctured a hole in the roof.

The game had 2:11 left in overtime, a very tense mood prevailed over the game because of the tight score: 64-61 in favor of Mississippi State.

Suddenly, a very loud crash was heard from inside the dome, and the girders near the roof started to swing. There was also debris falling from the newly inserted hole in the Dome's canopy.

Fan Tyler Williams described the blast like this:

"It sounded like a freight train...the rafters were swaying, and the roof of the dome was starting to ripple...it was a little frightening to say the least."

SEC officials immediately sent players, coaches, and the family of the coaches into the locker rooms, and began the process of evacuating the fans near the top of the stadium.

Over an hour later, the overtime game between Mississippi State and Alabama was resumed, resulting in a Mississippi State victory. The game that was scheduled between Georgia and Kentucky was postponed.

SEC officials are attempting to determine whether or not more games can be held in the punctured Georgia Dome. The National Weather Service predicts more bad weather coming into Atlanta for the next few days, and officials aren't sure if the Dome can take any more damage.

SEC spokesman Charles Bloom sums up the situation:

"That's one of the issues we're talking about, whether we can still be in the building...there's more bad weather coming and we're not sure what those [storm] cells will bring."

Bloom also said that a decision wouldn't be made until Saturday morning. 

There doesn't seem to be a need to worry about not having the time to complete the tournament, as officials seem to have that worked out. They could have two games played on Saturday: the quarterfinal game in the morning, then the winner could play in the semifinal game against Mississippi State later that night.

A problem that remains is where to host these games.

One possibility is the adjoining Philips Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks. (The Hawks were able to finish their 7:30 pm game against the Los Angeles Clippers without any harm from the storm.)

One unlikely possibility would be to actually move Selection Sunday back a few days to allow for this SEC conference tournament to finish up before the NCAA filled out the brackets, but I highly doubt that.