Road to St. Louis paved with SEC tournament memories

Mike Strange

Shopper News columnist

Don DeVoe won 204 games in 11 seasons at Tennessee, second only to Ray Mears.

SEC fans this week will punch their GPS devices and find a way to, of all places, St. Louis. A hockey arena in the Midwest is hosting the SEC men’s basketball tournament.

St. Louis is the 12th city to stage an event that began in 1933, took a break 1953-78 (thus missing the Ernie & Bernie Show) then returned in 1979. If the Gateway Arch isn’t exactly hallowed SEC ground, well, it’s the times we live in. The Big Ten is playing in Madison Square Garden this week.

So it might be a 7½-hour drive from Knoxville (and 12½ from Gainesville), but welcome to the Scotttrade Arena. To kill a few miles, here’s a travelogue through the 11 cities that have hosted SEC’s version of March Madness.

Knoxville: Alumni Gym held the 1939 and 1940 tournaments. The 1989 event in Thompson-Boling Arena turned out to be Don DeVoe’s final hour on the homecourt bench at Tennessee.

Memphis: Two trips to The Pyramid and two UT coaching farewells, Wade Houston in 1994 and Kevin O’Neill in 1997.

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Wade Houston, right, is welcomed as the new University of Tennessee basketball coach by Athletic Director Doug Dickey on April 4, 1989, at Thompson-Boling Arena. Houston, the first black coach in a major sport in the Southeastern Conference, signed a five-year contract for an annual base salary of $85,000. At left is UT President Lamar Alexander.

University of Tennessee basketball coach Kevin O'Neill poses for a team photo with players Stanley Caldwell, left, Steve Hamer, and Eldrick Bohannon during media day Oct. 11, 1994, at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Baton Rouge: In 1988, Jimmy Hyams – yes, WNML’s Jimmy Hyams – beat Coors Light Silver Bullet Sharpshooter Ted St. Martin in a halftime free-throw shooting contest for the second consecutive year. Hyams had won in ’87 in Atlanta. I’m not making this up.

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Jimmy Hyams will be inducted into the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame. He is pictured at the Citadel Broadcasting studios on Monday, July 11, 2011 during Sports Talk.

Orlando: Easily the poorest attendance of the modern era in 1990. It didn’t help that Kentucky was sitting out an NCAA postseason ban.

Tampa: The 2009 tournament wasn’t a tough ticket, either, especially after Kentucky and Florida went out on Friday. The Vols reached the title game for the first time in 17 years, losing 64-61 to Mississippi State.

Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl watches the game against Mississippi State during the 2009 SEC Tournament Championship game in Tampa, FL on Sunday. UT lost the game 64-61 in their first appearance since 1991.

Louisville: Derby City had a 12-year run 1941-52. The Vols won in 1943, but didn’t send a team to defend their title in 1944 due to World War II. Only six teams participated.

Lexington: Revenge in Rupp. On Feb. 24, 1993, in Knoxville, the Vols shocked No. 2 Kentucky 78-77. Sixteen days later, the Cats exacted bloody payback, 101-40. The 61-point margin led some members of the Tennessee press corps to dub it the “Roger Maris Game” forevermore.

New Orleans: Steve Hamer in 1996 rocked Alabama with 31 points and an SEC tournament-record 21 rebounds. Otherwise, the Vols accomplished zilch in three trips to the Big Easy.

Nashville: Before Bridgestone Arena became the semi-permanent (and best) home for the event, Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym was the site of Tennessee’s near-miracle in 1991. The nine-win Vols caught fire and ripped through Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Georgia before running out of steam against Alabama in the title game.

A high seating area of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta shows damage caused by high winds near the end of the Alabama-Mississippi State basketball game Friday, March 14, 2008.

Birmingham: The 1979 Vols celebrated the tournament’s return from a 27-year hiatus by beating Kentucky in overtime for the championship, Tennessee’s only one of the modern era. The 1992 tourney witnessed a bench-clearing brawl between UT and LSU, high- (or low-) lighted by coach Dale Brown going after UT’s Carlus Groves – in defense of Shaquille O’Neal. But the bigger story in ’92 was the debut of Arkansas fans to challenge Kentucky’s fiefdom. The SEC tourney was going to be different from here on.

Atlanta: Eleven tourneys in the cavernous Georgia Dome were 11 too many, it says here. But I would never have wished for a tornado. That’s what happened on Friday night in 2008. The games moved to Georgia Tech’s Alexander Memorial Coliseum, where an invitation-only crowd of 3,700 watched afterthought Georgia beat Arkansas for the title, the Bulldogs’ third win in 30 hours.

You’re up, St. Louis.

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