Mercer Scores Big with A-Sun Tournament

Imagine next spring in Macon, with temperatures oscillating from near freezing to surprisingly warm and cherry blossoms abound.  Then imagine Mercer’s campus flooded with thousands of basketball fans, all watching in anticipation to see if their respective teams can capture the Atlantic Sun basketball title.  For the next two years, this dream will finally become a reality.

Fourteen games in four days, spanning March 3-6, 2010, will certainly put Macon back on the map as far as sports are concerned.  Seven women’s games and seven men’s games will help determine the 2010 Atlantic Sun champions.  ESPN will televise the men’s championship game held here in the University Center, bringing the Worldwide Leader in Sports to Mercer’s campus for the first time in school history. 

Thousands…yes thousands, of fans will flood the campus, staying in the nearby Hilton Garden Inn and surrounding area hotels, eating at local establishments.  Parking will most likely be a nightmare and the university may want to consider opening another concession stand or two at the games, but at this point, who really cares?

Macon is once again a sports town…at least for a week next March.  The revenue generated will boost the local economy and the tournament games will give local sportswriters more than they can handle.  National media outlets will be ever-present on campus and it won’t be uncommon to see more than a few hooligans painted up for the games. 

How did it happen all of a sudden?  How did Mercer suddenly become the host of the A-Sun tournament when a year ago the Macon Music (Macon’s last professional sports team) skipped town?  How did the university pull the tournament away from Nashville, the host city for the tournament the last four years?

In hindsight, the decision was really quite simple for Atlantic Sun commissioner Ted Gumbart.  Macon is geographically in the center of the conference.  In fact, the conference’s office buildings are located right off Vineville Avenue.  Geography wasn’t enough though. 

Area support was a crucial factor and area support was something Athletic Director Bobby Pope and new men’s basketball coach Bob Hoffman found this season.  Home game attendance was at an all-time high this season, just shy of 1800 spectators per game. 

In fact, this year alone had one sellout (Georgia Tech) and a handful of "close-to-capacity" contests (most notably against Lipscomb).  Attribute it to Pope’s new hire or to the fact that Hoffman set up signs all over Macon advertising for the home games, or the fact the team won seventeen games this season, but the city finally came around to the realization that Mercer is the only game in town.  A good one at that.

Headlines are already in the works for next season.  James Florence could very well become the school’s all-time leading scorer by midseason next year and with a plethora of talent on the floor and only one graduating senior, Mercer could be primed for a title run next season. 

Undoubtedly, there will be Mercer crazies in the stands for the Bear’s tournament games in the UC next spring.  Win or lose, the city of Macon stills wins this contest.  In a year of financial troubles and economic instability, in a year of layoffs and cloudy skies, it seems that Macon and Mercer University have pulled off a big upset win.