We’ve been anxiously awaiting the next thirty days for the last eleven months.  You have too.  In fact, if this isn’t your favorite time of year by a healthy margin then you should probably click away from this site for a while.   Because we plan on waterboarding you with March Madness coverage.  Seriously, you’re going to feel like Dick Cheney himself is holding a Spalding-logoed towel over your face.  Your intake will be so voluminous that you’ll be drooling Gus Johnson and bracket residue in your sleep.  Or Seth Davis, if that’s more your style.  The point is that we’re all locked in and ready to go.  Are you?  To help us all get into the mood, we like to click around a fancy little website called YouTube for a daily dose of notable events, happenings, finishes, ups and downs relating to the next month.  We’re going to try to make this video compilation a little smarter, a little edgier, a little historical-er.  Or whatever.  Sure, you’ll see some old favorites that never lose their luster, but you’ll also see some that maybe you’ve forgotten or never knew to begin with.  That’s the hope, at least.  We’ll be matching the videos by the appropriate week, so for the next seven days, we’ll be re-visiting some of the timeless moments from Championship Week.  Enjoy.

Championship Week

Dateline: 2008 Sec Tournament – Mississippi State vs. Alabama

Context: It was quarterfinal Friday in Atlanta at the SEC Tournament, and there were severe weather warnings throughout the evening in the area.  With 2:11 left in overtime in a very good game between Mississippi State and Alabama, a category EF2 tornado with winds up to 135 mph ripped through downtown Atlanta coming within mere yards of the Georgia Dome.  On the television broadcast, you can see the eerie reaction of fans familiar with the locomotive rumble of a twister echoing through the building as they ran for cover while steel girders at the top of the dome swayed back and forth.  A large hole was ripped in the north side of the dome’s roof and it was only after it had passed that everyone realized just how close of a call it had been.  The rest of the night’s games were delayed until Saturday, and this was the infamous incident that led to Georgia playing two games on the same day, beating Kentucky and Mississippi State in front of an empty arena at Georgia Tech.  Georgia then went on to win the SEC’s automatic bid by winning more games (four) than they had won in the entire SEC regular season slate that year (three).