Dallas or Atlanta.  Atlanta or Dallas.

As the SEC and Big 12 try to pick a new city/bowl partner for their “Champions” Bowl game, this writer wants to cast his vote — not that I’ve actually got a vote, of course — for New Orleans.

Atlanta is a fine city, but don’t SEC fans already get their fill of the Georgia Dome?  You’ve got the Chick-fil-A Kickoff games.  The Chick-fil-A Bowl.  The SEC Championship Game.  The SEC Tournament every few basketball seasons.  Atlanta is a great city, a fun city (especially if Ray Lewis isn’t in town).  Heck, it’d be a good city for the occasional college football championship game.  But the SEC is in danger of becoming all Atlanta’d out.  Plus, Big 12′ers might not be eager to make the long trip to mid-Georgia.

As for Dallas, well, the option on the table really isn’t even Dallas.  Or Fort Worth.  It’s Arlington.  And while that’s surely a nice place with some mighty hospitable folks ready to welcome the tourists, easily the biggest things going for that city are Jerry Jones’ stadium and his bank account.  In fact, Cowboys Stadium and Jones’ wallet will probably land the “Champions” Bowl.  But SEC fans might not be eager to make the long trek to mid-Texas.  And aren’t Big 12 backers leery of becoming to Metroplex-centric (a la the SEC and Atlanta)?

In this scibe’s opinion there’s only one place for the “Champions” Bowl.  It’s like a little foreign country — complete with different architecture, different cuisine, different accents, and a different culture — right in the middle of the United States.  That place is of course New Orleans.  A tourist Mecca.  So long as the fans promise to steer clear of Krystal after the game, the “Champions” Bowl should marry up with the Sugar Bowl ASAP.

The city’s location would even make it the easiest travel destination for fans of both conferences.

If you’re still not biting on New Orleans, here are 15 reasons to make the new SEC/Big 12 bowl a permanent resident of the Big Easy… provided by a frequent and recent connoisseur of the city:

15.  Above-ground cemeteries

You might’ve seen photos, but until you’ve driven by or toured one of these products of the area’s below-sea-level setting, you haven’t a clue as to just how freakin’ unusual they really are.

14.  Voodoo

While I was in the French Quarter last weekend, someone asked a New Orleans native barkeep is she would pose for a photo with his group’s souvenir Voodoo doll.  The response?  De-Nied.  The 20-something wanted no part of whatever karma or witchery might pass from the group to the doll to her.  Asking her about her response I was told, “I don’t believe much in religion, but Voodoo is a different beast.”  You won’t hear that in Arlington.

13.  The National World War II Museum

“Never was so much owed by so many to so few.”  Have any appreciation at all for the sacrifices made by the “Greatest Generation” in the world’s last, truly global war?  Then try to go through New Orleans’ D-Day Museum without getting misty-eyed at least once.  Moving.  Very moving.

12.  Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall

For those with interest in a different war — and more than a few of the folks I spotted there were real “Lost Causers” — swing by this little archive.  Even if basking in Confederate mythology isn’t your idea of fun, you’ll at least come to the realization from looking at the authentic uniforms on hand that 19th-century males were roughly the size of Hobbits.

11.  Swamp tours

Ever been to another planet?  Take an airboat tour through the swamps and bayous and you’ll get that feeling.  Do your research and find a good tour company, though.  Don’t do the brochure-from-a-street-vendor thing.

10.  Jen at Finnegan’s Easy

The best barkeeper in the Quarter.  Working at a laid-back joint, Jen’s anything but.  Say something stupid and you’ll likely find yourself tossed back out onto St. Peter Street.  Trust me, though, Jen’s tops…

9.  Dixie Beer

Especially if she’s serving up a bottle of ice cold Dixie Beer.  After Hurricane Katrina these suds are no longer brewed in New Orleans, but they still provide a step back into the past with the same old recipe.  (Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on your own taste buds.)  The college kids will be drinking their Abita, but the old school, PBR-types will be sipping Dixies and digging the local music.

8.  Jackson Square

It’s the photo op that has to be done in New Orleans.  Local artists pitch their paintings.  Local musicians make their music.  And tourists throw money at both.  All in front of beautiful St. Louis Cathedral and the famous statue of Andrew Jackson, hero of New Orleans in the War of 1812.  (Jackson went on to become president and sign into law the Indian Removal Act which should be his lasting, shameful legacy.  Sorry, Jacksonites, I’m not a fan of the man.)

7.  Zoo, aquarium and Imax

Yes, you can actually take the kids to N’awlins.  And while they’re enjoying kid-like things…

6.  Hand Grenades

You can enjoy the most famous product of The Tropical Isle.  Sweet, but not quite as sweet — or famous — as Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane, the Hand Grenade packs a much more powerful punch.  So be careful.  Though your girlfriend might love the melon taste, she’ll actually be pouring back some Pure Grain Alcohol.  The fact that you can’t taste said alcohol is the danger.  (I learned this lesson before a mid-90s wedding rehearsal of which I have zero recollection.)

5.  3-for-1s

If you’re headed to Bourbon Street in order to party, you can do so on the cheap.  While spots in Arlington and Atlanta probably offer up 2-for-1 drinks during Happy Hour, several stops on Bourbon offer 3-for-1 beers at all hours.

4.  Architecture

Nola isn’t all about getting boozed up, of course.  The older you get, the more you come to appreciate the unique culture of the city.  From the balconies to the small courtyards, the architecture and look of New Orleans play a big part in creating the feel of New Orleans.  (Those French and Spanish street names in the Quarter give everything a slight “are we still in America?” quality, too.)

3.  Food

Five words: Jambalaya, etouffee, muffaleta, alligator, crawfish.  Again, New Orleans is like its own little nation.

2.  Music

It seems that on every street and every street corner live music can be heard.  Jazz (not my favorite), zydeco (close to my favorite), and blues (my absolute favorite) are omnipresent.  From professionals in the French Quarter clubs to bucket-banging street performers, they all create the soundtrack of the city.

1.  It’s the right thing to do

Until Las Vegas builds a football stadium capable of hosting 80,000 fans, there’s no city in America that is more geared toward giving tourists a warm, friendly welcome than New Orleans.  Since Hurricane Katrina, the city has rebounded and thankfully maintained much of its pre-disaster personality.  But the work isn’t done and the more money that gets poured back into that city’s economy the better.  So says this lover of the Big Easy.

So for fans looking for a good time in a town that’s darn near smack in the middle of Big 12/SEC country — and for the financial benefit of one of our nation’s most unique locales — the “Champions” Bowl needs to wind up in New Orleans either by hook or by crook.  (And if Louisiana politicians get involved, that would take care of the “crook” part.)

Nola, anyone?  Nola, everyone?

Nola it is.

Last Friday, the Southeastern Conference took a wrong turn when it came to its new football and basketball schedule formats.  The league yielded — in our view — to schools’ self-interests rather than pushing for what was best for the conference and its fans long-term.

You know the backstory:

* The SEC’s eight-game 6-1-1 football schedule does protect three of the league’s oldest rivalries (Alabama-Tennessee, Auburn-Georgia, and Ole Miss-Vanderbilt), one important television draw (Florida-LSU), and it should help to create a new border war (Arkansas-Missouri).  That much we like.  Unfortunately, the new plan also means that cross-divisional rotating foes will visit one another just once every three presidential terms.  Think about that.  Worse, it opens the door for all the legion of non-SEC fans out there — from conference commissioners to the media to the people who might wind up on a playoff selection committee — to point to the fact that the SEC as a whole schedules more FCS foes and fewer BCS-level foes than any of the other five major conferences.

* The 1-4-8 basketball format is a slap at any SEC fan who happens to care about the league’s history and tradition.  (Judging from our emails, there aren’t many out there who do care about basketball and that’s darned disappointing.)  Rather than protecting two, three, or even four  permanent rivals per school, the league voted instead to protect only one per school as a yearly home-and-away foe.  Games that have been played more than 180, 190 and even 200 times a piece will now be once-a-year affairs in some cases, including arguably the SEC’s best traditional rivalry: Kentucky versus Tennessee.

We made it clear last week that we believe the football issue will eventually be corrected.  Either the league will have to go to a nine-game schedule to squeeze more money from television networks looking for better games or the league will learn the hard way that its “more creampuffs” policy hurts it when it comes to anti-SEC’ers who are looking for any angle — including strength of schedule shots — to take down the biggest bully on the block.  Perhaps both.

And, yes, further expansion forced by a collapse of the ACC could lead to a nine-game schedule, as well.

As for basketball, well, it doesn’t appear there’s much hope for hoops.  We pointed out in January that it would be possible to protect more rivalries.  The league’s coaches and ADs and presidents cared not.  Tradition?  Hell with it.

Unfortunately this has only led to more people complaining about the SEC’s decision to expand in the first place.  But that’s not entirely fair.  As explained above and as we’ve written about for months, the conference could have added Missouri and Texas A&M and still done a better job with its schedules.  It could have protected itself from outside attacks.  It could have given TV networks better inventory.  It could have protected more heritage games.  The league’s power brokers chose not to.

So how did this come to pass?

First, Mike Slive is a consensus-builder.  Those who’ve sat in meetings with the man say he’s a master at working a room, keeping a conversation focused, and finding common ground.  Those are good traits.  It’s no wonder his work in 2008 with CBS and ESPN changed the way conferences make their money.

As a consensus-builder, however, there are times — it appears — that he can give too much power to the people.  Slive works for the SEC schools, but he’s been hired to lead them and steer them in sports-related issues.  In the case of the new scheduling formats, he allowed people to lean too heavily on their own self-interests, in our opinion.

Slive and the league put together a “transition team” tasked with creating schedules that everyone could agree upon (at least to some degree).  That unit was headed up by former Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton.  Templeton was joined by three others from the SEC office — Mark Womack (executive associate commissioner), Greg Sankey (executive associate commissioner), and Mark Whitworth (associate commissioner).

According to the SEC’s chief PR man and associate commissioner for media relations, Charles Bloom, Templeton’s squad worked with and contacted the league’s athletic directors throughout the process “including taking proposals to them at scheduled AD’s meetings.”  That included meetings in Nashville during the women’s basketball tournament and in New Orleans during the men’s basketball tournament.

So from the start, the league’s schedule-making group was getting feedback from the conference’s athletic directors.  Those athletic directors — obviously — were talking to their own coaches.  The ADs opinions were shaped by their coaches’ opinions.  The transition team’s proposals, therefore, were shaped by the ADs opinions and to some extent by the coaches’ opinions.

Not good.

Bloom also told MrSEC.com via email that the schools involved — specifically Missouri and Texas A&M — also had their own transition teams involved in the process.

All this looks to be where the breakdown occurred.  Rather than creating two plans that made sense for the conference’s long-term good in football and basketball and then setting out to build support for those plans, the SEC office seems to have tried to let everyone have a say from the get-go.  Instead of building a consensus behind its own scheduling formats, the SEC’s formats were built — to some degree — out of a consensus.  There’s a big difference there.

One tactic involves leadership and strong-arm tactics at the end of the process.  “This is what’s best for everyone and here’s why.”  The other tactic is really more akin to steering a large group of people toward common ground.  “Hey, let’s take part of Joe’s idea and mix it with a bit of Steve’s idea and see if Bob will agree to that.”

In a word: Groupthink.

Roy Kramer and the league’s decision-makers in 1992 acted boldly.  SEC football coaches were against an eight-game schedule and they surely did not want a championship game tacked on at the end of every season.  Tough.  Kramer’s group did what was best for the league.  Those bold actions set the table for much of the success Slive’s crew has enjoyed and built upon.

But it’s hard to imagine the SEC adding games and a title bout in ’92 if the league’s ADs and even coaches had had a strong say in the process from the beginning.  Sadly, 20 years down the line, you’re going to hear different stories from different people regarding who did what and why.  Everyone involved at this stage will want to claim that they played a leading role in shaping the league’s future.  (Take for instance all the debate over the SEC’s approach to Florida State in the 1990s.  Depending on who’s telling the story: the SEC offered FSU, the SEC never offered FSU, FSU spurned the SEC, or FSU never had an offer to officially turn down.  You have to check the records and reports of the day to get a true picture of what happened.)

Slive is viewed by many as the strongest commissioner in college sports.  It’s hard to argue that point when his league has won six national football crowns and three national basketball titles since 2006… all with truly national television coverage of both sports and record profits thrown in for good measure.

We simply believe he should have acted more strongly this time around regarding the league’s schedules.  Rather than giving everyone a say along the way, he and the league would have been better off cooking up a pair of smart plans and then doing whatever it took to jam them down each school’s throat.

Slive, it must be noted, was trying to wrangle 14 cats this time around and there’s no question that’s a more difficult chore than getting 12 schools on the same page, as Kramer and his team did.

But Slive has shown that he’s capable of being a strong-arm type of guy.  Just a year ago, with football coaches lined up unanimously against a cap on signing classes, the commissioner coaxed and cajoled the bosses of the league’s coaches and athletic directors to go their own way.  The presidents did.  And even though not every president really wanted signing caps, Slive had the power of personality to convince everyone to vote unanimously in favor of adding a 25-man cap.

That’s power.  And we at MrSEC.com wish he would have used as much power on the scheduling front this year as he did on oversigning front last year.

The league would be better off today if he had.

Tyren Jones’ commitment to Alabama hasn’t affected LSU’s interest in the running back from Walton High School in Marietta, Ga.

The Tigers appear to still be in heavy pursuit of Jones despite his pledge to Alabama.

Alabama Commit Tyren Jones told me LSU has really turned the heat up on him. He is from New Orleans. Weighed 201 today and said “solid” 2 UA

— Rusty Mansell (@Mansell247) May 2, 2012

Despite that “solid” pledge, Jones’ recruitment could still be worth monitoring. The Crimson Tide already has a commitment from running back Altee Tenpenny from North Little Rock, Ark. Another running back choosing Alabama could influence Jones to look elsewhere, including LSU.

Other schools to offer Jones include Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Clemson and North Carolina.

Trent Johnson’s days on the Bayou are officially over after four seasons.  The LSU basketball coach officially resigned yesterday and will be introduced as TCU’s new hoops coach today.

Johnson — who led the Tigers to one SEC regular-season title, one NCAA Tournament and one NIT — was never viewed as a good “fit” with the LSU fanbase.  So while the school is losing a coach with a proven track record, there will be few tears shed in Baton Rouge today.

Tiger AD Joe Alleva admitted as much yesterday:


“Sometimes coaching changes work out well for all parties involved, and we will take this opportunity to see out the best coach for the long-term future of LSU men’s basketball.

We will move quickly but deliberately to find a coach who will lead our program with integrity and discipline, someone who will recruit effectively in order to build championship teams while inspiring success in academics, and someone who will energize our fan base.  I wish Trent all the best in his new job.”


Key phrase: “Someone who will energize our fan base.”

Johnson had had success at Nevada and Stanford when he arrived at LSU.  He was the example of a proven, “name” coach who did not work out.  Will Alleva now chase another proven, “name” coach — as South Carolina did with Frank Martin — or will he go the assistant/up-and-comer route — as Mississippi State did with Rick Ray?

Already, several coaches with ties to the Pelican State have been mentioned as potential candidates:

Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew was born in Baton Rouge while his father Homer Drew served on Dale Brown’s Tigers staff in the 1970s.  Drew met with AD Scott Stricklin about Mississippi State’s job before deciding to remain at Valpo.  Drew’s brother, Scott, has turned Baylor into a national power, but news is out today that he and his staff — as well as BU’s women’s staff — have made more than 1,200 impermissible phone calls and text messages to recruits over the past two-and-a-half years.  That’s Scott, not Bryce, but still, it bears mentioning.

UTEP’s Tim Floyd played at Louisiana Tech and coached at New Orleans before moving on to Iowa State and the NBA.  Working against Floyd is the fact that after the NBA, he landed at Southern Cal.  There he resigned after a report claimed he paid money to a street agent in order to sign OJ Mayo.  The Trojan program got smacked around by the NCAA and Floyd landed in El Paso.

Marquette’s Buzz Williams was an assistant at Northwestern State before becoming the head coach at New Orleans for a season.

Whoever lands in Baton Rouge will inherit a program featuring only eight returning players at the moment.  Justin Hamilton announced last week that he would turn pro early.

Second-year Georgia inside linebackers coach Kirk Olivadotti came to the Dawgs from the NFL.  For four of his 11 seasons in pro football he was an assistant under Gregg Williams — scorn of the sport, pariah, and the man behind Bounty-gate.

Players have come forward to say that Williams not only had a bounty system in place in New Orleans, but also at Washington… where he supervised Olivadotti.  (And is there any doubt Williams did the same thing at his previous coaching stops as well?)

Asked about the scandal yesterday, Olivadotti wanted no part of it.  The Macon Telegraph reports that he said the issue is “out of my pay grade” and that he was “not touching it.”  He also said, “I have an opinion on it, but I’m not gonna say anything about it.”

Pressed for more by the evil media horde — how dare they do their jobs? –  UGA’s assistant finally offered up the following:


“You never want to injure somebody.  You never want anybody to get carted off the field or any of that stuff.  That’s not what you want to do with that stuff.  You want to play the game the right way, there’s a physical aspect to it, that you want to knock people back there.  There should be some wide receivers hearing footsteps, and all that kind of stuff.  Well, there’s a way to do that and do it the right way, and do it withing the right rules.  There’s a right way to do it and a wrong way…

Knocking your head off is one thing, but going after specific stuff (like knees)… There’s a way to play and a way not to play.  And this game has been played for a long time and it’s going to be played a long time after us, and there’s a right way to play and a wrong way to play it, and you’re supposed to play it hard, it’s supposed to be physical, it’s supposed to be knock-back, you’re supposed to run into dudes as hard as you can, they’re supposed to run into you as hard as they can, and that’s physical enough.  That’s physical enough.”


So apparently there’s a right way and a wrong way to play.  Okay, got that part.  But the Williams’ bounty situation puts a stink on everyone connected to him.  The audio tapes released yesterday make it clear that Williams wasn’t just trying to get his guys to play tough, he was literally targeting opposing players’ body parts.

Is this the first and only time something like this has happened?  Of course not.  But it’s the first time something so over-the-top and graphic has been laid bare before a world where the media — and media consumers — are omnipresent.

Olivadotti danced around the topic as best he could.  You can bet he won’t be the only ex-Williams co-worker to have to answer questions about Bounty-gate.

It’s a big night in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and across the entire Southeast.

Kentucky is poised to finally reach the summit of the college basketball world once more.  The Southeastern Conference is set to continue its dominance in the three biggest men’s sports.

When UK steps on the floor against Kansas tonight, the Cats will be playing for their eighth national title all-time, second only to UCLA.  Fittingly, the winningest program in basketball history will have to best the second-winningest team in history for the title.  With a victory John Calipari will get a King Kong-sized monkey off his own back while allowing his employer to hang its first NCAA championship banner since 1998.

But Kentucky is also representing the SEC tonight in New Orleans.  Since the calendar turned to January 2006, the league has dominated college football, college basketball and college baseball:

A Wildcat victory tonight would give the SEC 12 national titles out of a possible 21.  No other league has more than two in that span in that seven-year span.

So while Kentucky will be trying to usher in a new golden age tonight, the SEC will be hoping to keep its golden age rolling right along.

It’s almost time for the big Kentucky-Louisville showdown in New Orleans.  We continue to give this monster game its own set of headlines…


1.  Everyone in Kentucky is taking sides for tomorrow’s Final Four matchup.

2.  This Cards-Cats game overshadows the rest of the weekend.

3.  The players don’t feel the off-court hate that UK and U of L fans do.

4.  John Calipari thinks it’s bad karma to root against a team.

5.  Here’s a Calipari/Rick Pitino history lesson as told by coaches, players and more.  Good stuff, ESPN.  Good stuff.

6.  For the uninitiated, the two coaches have a bit of an ongoing feud with one another.

7.  Louisville wants to create chaos with its defense.

8.  This year’s Kentucky team is different from Calipari’s previous squads.

9.  Anthony Davis’ knee is 90% healthy.  (He also won the AP’s Player of the Year Award today.)

10.  In the end, reality is not on Louisville’s side.

The NCAA Tournament — by its sheer design — creates wonderful storylines and incredible sideshows each and every season.  For three rounds, small schools most folks have never heard of take down a few giants.  Then over the last three rounds, the biggest fish swallow up the remaining guppies which leaves coaches to face their old schools, local rivals to meet, and feuding program-runners to do battle with one another.

Thanks to Louisville’s tight win over Florida on Saturday and Kentucky’s blowout victory over Baylor yesterday, all three of those things will occur in New Orleans at the Final Four:


Coach facing old school: Check.  Rick Pitino versus Kentucky.

Local rivals meeting:  Check.  Kentucky versus Louisville.

Feuding coaches doing battle:  Check.  John Calipari versus Pitino.


The only downside to this  Battle of the Bluegrass State?  It’s slated for the national semifinals and not the actual final game.  And let’s face facts, that would be an even bigger, even better storyline.

Kentucky’s run this season has been dominant.  Calipari is looking for his first ever national title.  What could be better for Cat fans than capturing their first national crown since 1998 against Louisville and ex-UK coach Pitino?

On the flipside, imagine the pain Kentucky fans would feel if their latest “best shot” at a title was undone by those same Cards and that same turncoat — in most Cat fans’ eyes — coach.

Even in a sport that gives us electric, emotional storylines every March, such a set-up would provide the potential for the greatest mood swing in modern sports history.  Toss in the fact that there’s little love lost between Coach Cal and Ricky P and the finals would shatter television ratings records across the Commonwealth.

Don’t get me wrong, Saturday’s matchup will still be a doozy and one bitter rival will send the other bitter rival packing.  Calipari or Pitino will still block the other’s pursuit of a title. 

Oh, but if that Kentucky-Louisville game were still a possibility for Monday’s championship game?  Bedlam.  Complete and utter bedlam.  Suicide hotlines would have to add extra staffing.  Police in Louisville and Lexington would have to unbox their riot gear in preparation. 

Saturday will be fantastic for basketball fans inside and outside Kentucky’s state lines.  But a clash in Monday’s finals would have been seismic.  If only those brackets could be redrawn today.

1.  Florida needs a renewed focus on defense today against Alabama.

2.  The Gators also need a feel-good win heading into the NCAAs.  (This one’s Billy Donovan versus old aide Anthony Grant, by the way.)

3.  If Georgia had shot all year the way they did in two games against Mississippi State, they sure wouldn’t have finished 5-11 in league play.

4.  Former UGA tight end Orson Charles — who left school early for the NFL — followed up a disappointing Pro Day with a DUI early this morning.  (Charles said Monday that he turned pro in order to help his mother pay some of her bills.)

5.  If you’re in New Orleans today to see Kentucky take on LSU — in less than an hour — you’ll likely spot a billboard of Anthony Davis that the school has put up.

6.  Expect the Tigers to be physical with the Wildcats today.

7.  South Carolina’s “miserable season” ended with yesterday’s loss to Alabama.

8.  Just to reiterate, Carolina’s “forgettable season” ends with the loss.

9.  Tennessee will enter tonight’s game with visions of the NCAA tourney dancing in their heads.

10.  For Cuonzo Martin it’s all about the defense… as usual.

11.  Vanderbilt will try to go 3-0 versus Georgia when they play late tonight.

12.  Festus Ezeli says the SEC tourney is “a chance to right some of the wrongs we’ve made before.”

13.  Gary Pinkel says Missouri and Kansas should play in Kansas City every September.

UPDATE — Mike Slive says the league will discuss making changes to the way it doles out Thursday-Saturday basketball turnarounds.

Pat Dooley of The Gainesville Sun caught up with SEC commissioner Mike Slive for a quick, but good little Q&A today.  The focus is on Southeastern Conference basketball and much of the discussion centers on the league tournament and its future.

It’s a good read, but here’s the section that stood out to this writer:

Dooley: The SEC Football Championship and baseball tournament have permanent homes. Why does the league like to move the basketball tournament around?

Slive: As we have looked at basketball, we knew we wanted to be in Atlanta on a somewhat regular basis and at the same time our fans enjoy the somewhat smaller basketball venues, so we’ve experimented by moving it around. We’ve been to Florida, we’re in New Orleans this year and we have found Nashville has served us well, so, as you know, we’re projected to come to Bridgestone Arena a little more often. In the future, we’ll settle in to Atlanta, Nashville and another site yet to be determined.

Dooley: Do you see a time when it might stay in one place?

Slive: I don’t know. I wouldn’t say no, but there has been a tradition of moving it around. Many of the venues that we want to go to are also competing for NCAA second and third rounds and regionals, and they are not available on an annual basis.

Dooley: With the new additions to the league, will other cities become part of the rotation?

Slive: Yeah, I think we anticipate we will hear from St. Louis. Whether or not we’ll hear from cities in Texas I don’t know. We still have two open years. We’re going to be in Nashville a lot, but ’17 and ’18 are open.

Assuming the commissioner wasn’t being waterboarded during questioning, it’s possible that his answers should not be taken too literally.  Having said that, in Slive’s own words he expects the league tourney to “settle in to Atlanta, Nashville and another site.”

For a while now — most recently last week — we at MrSEC.com have called for the league to create a regular rotation through four host cities: Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans and Memphis.

Atlanta and Nashville are easy to reach, centrally-located, tourist destinations.  Memphis is located within reach of several SEC fanbases and is also a tourist destination, but the city lost out on its bid to land the 2015 tourney.  Also, hosting a five-day event would force the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies on a road trip for that bit of time (as is the case with the New Orleans Hornets this week).  In addition, there’s no telling how much interest University of Memphis booster and FedEx boss Fred Smith has in allowing 14 SEC schools to strut their stuff in front of West Tennessee recruits right in the FedExForum.

New Orleans — while a bit of a hike for most fans — is still New Orleans.  The fact that the SEC’s first first-round game today seems to have fewer fans in attendance than the other league tourneys currently on television doesn’t help the city’s case, but we expect Kentucky fans will invade tonight and tomorrow.

Currently the SEC is scheduled to play its tournament in Nashville in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2019.  The tourney will move back to Atlanta for 2014.  (We know many would like to see the league bump the NBA’s Hawks for five days in order to play at the Philips Arena, rather than in the cavernous Georgia Dome.)

The tournament is still up for bid in 2017 and 2018.  Which brings us to another remark from the commissioner that jumped off the page.

Slive said that he anticipates hearing from St. Louis.  There was no mention of Kansas City.  Some folks in KC had suggested making a play for an SEC tourney and Missouri AD Mike Alden gave them his blessing.  We at MrSEC.com did not.  Kansas City is just too far away from most league schools and it’s very hard to imagine area fans paying attention to the SEC tourney while the Big 12 Tournament is going on elsewhere at the same time.

The commish also said he’s not sure if the SEC will hear from any cities in Texas.  As was the case in Missouri, there’s been some chatter among Texas A&M backers that Houston or even Dallas might bid to host a tournament.  As for Dallas, see: Kansas City.  Houston?  Well, we’d be okay with the league tossing the Aggies a bone and allowing a single tourney to be played there, but no more.

So where does all this leave the tourney?  Apparently in Nashville quite often.  That’s fine for yours truly.  Broadway is just steps from The Bridgestone Arena and that’s a good thing.  (Total sidenote — The downtown Hilton in Nashville ranks for me alongside the Royal Sonesta in New Orleans, the MGM Signature in Las Vegas, the Millenium Bostonian in Beantown, the Harbourview Inn in Charleston, the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, the Hotel Birger Jarl in Stockholm, the NH Porta Rossa in Florence, and the Pennington Hotel — of course — in England’s Lake District as a personal favorite.  Free plugs for all.)  After Nashville in 2015 and ’16, here’s guessing Atlanta will add either 2017 or 2018 to its 2014 hosting duties.

That would leave one tourney in either ’17 or ’18 for St. Louis and the Gateway to the West.  And all of that sounds rather easy for multiple fanbases.  Anyone can get to Atlanta and Nashville.  And St. Louis would be a draw for Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Alabama and Ole Miss fans.  If you’ve seen the movie, “Up In The Air,” you know St. Louis has an airport for those inclined to wing it to a tourney, as well.

If the SEC created a regular rotation of Altlanta, Nashville, New Orleans and St. Louis — with a bit heavier dose of Atlanta and Nashville — Slive and company would get good marks from those of us here at MrSEC.com.

Something you can be sure the folks in the league offices yearn for everyday.

Sidenote – As noted above, the current four-day tournament will most likely become a five-day event next year when the SEC adds A&M and Mizzou.  Here’s how we believe that bracket should look.