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SEC Tournament: Will coronavirus affect Tennessee Vols fan attendance?

By Caleb Calhoun

NASHVILLE, TN - MARCH 16: A general view of the arena prior to the second round of the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena on March 16, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
NASHVILLE, TN - MARCH 16: A general view of the arena prior to the second round of the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena on March 16, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
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With the 2020 SEC Tournament in Nashville, many Tennessee basketball fans were set to show up. Will the Volunteers still be well-represented amid COVID-19?

On Thursday, Tennessee basketball is set to face the Alabama Crimson Tide in the second round of the SEC Tournament. Those two teams will be competing to face the top-seeded Kentucky Wildcats in the quarterfinals Friday afternoon.

Since the tournament is taking place at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, it’s likely that many Vol fans were going to try to make it. Heck, that could even give them a home-court advantage, for what it’s worth, although nobody will count out Kentucky fans filling a stadium in that area.

However, with the Coronavirus outbreak, everything changes. The NCAA Tournament is now limiting attendance to its games because of it. Although that hasn’t happened in the SEC Tournament, you have to wonder how many people will make their way to the arena after such news on a national scale broke on Wednesday.

The question then is about how many Vol fans will attend this weekend’s event. After all, the SEC Tournament is a bigger deal to UT than the NCAA Tournament since they have to win the conference, or at least make a deep run, just to have a shot at it.

Of course, the safety of everybody is much more important than the Vols winning any tournament, or any team winning any tournament for that matter, and it’s certainly more important than them having home-court advantage in that tournament. So this is a very small issue in the grand scheme of things.

However, it’s still something that is interesting to think about. The SEC Tournament was in Nashville last year, and the Vols made it to the championship game. At the same time, they lost in the title game with all their fans in attendance after winning the day before, against Kentucky, on what was effectively a neutral court.

What’s going to happen in this one? Nobody knows for sure, as this news is changing everyday. It’s clear, though, that the developments could dramatically affect the plans of many Vol fans given where the tournament is.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.

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