Weather delay? For a basketball game?

Yes. In the midst of the SEC Tournament quarterfinals -- Alabama and Mississippi State are in overtime -- a loud, piercing wind ripped through the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the lightweight roof structure visibly rippled, and the support scaffolding for the central scoreboard began to sway.

Whistles blew. Players look up.

Debris fell onto the floor. And people began to clear the stands.

We're being told now on Sun Sports in the southeast region that play is expected to resume shortly now that Georgia Dome officials have completed an inspection and deemed the building structurally sound.

This has to be a first, right? An indoor sporting event delayed due to severe weather? Crazy.

Check out the positively sick hops on 6' 1" -- yes, you read that right, six-foot, one freakin' inch -- Senario Hillman.

Hillman's high-flying dunk wasn't enough to spur Alabama on to victory over the 7th-ranked Tennessee Vols, but it was enough to bring the house down. Senario's vertical is 42 inches... that's Michael Jordan territory.

The 1-4 Alabama Crimson Tide took the 7th-ranked Volunteers down to the wire in Tuscaloosa. As we all know by now, however, Bama can't win close games, and added another home loss to their conference record which now sits at 1-5. (Final was 93-86 although it was a 2-point game with 1:44 remaining.)

Many aspects of the game were ugly, the most obvious of which was the butterfingers display by both teams. Tennessee lost the handle 20 times, Alabama 23. And Alabama remains wretched at the charity stripe: they shot a miserable 59%.

If the Tide were even nominal in either category, the Vols would not have escaped Tuscaloosa with a win. Luckily, All-American Chris Lofton has finally heated up and is making the crazily-contested treys which made him famous.

What can the rest of Tennessee's opponents take from this game? The Vols are not, for now at least, any kind of conference juggernaut. They're still fast and deep, they still shoot well and their pressure defense is always hell to deal with, but they're a team that's not quite fundamentally sound just yet. Defensively, the Vols had no answer for Bama's Richard Hendrix, who was unstoppable in the paint with 20 points on 9-12 shooting and 12 rebounds. And Alonzo Gee was spectacular. He scored from everywhere on the court, logging 27 points.

The Vols weren't exactly money at the free throw line either, managing only 19-28, but they did sink the crucial shots down the stretch to preserve their small lead.

The Vols are still the SEC's best overall team -- for now -- but Mississippi State, Florida, and even Kentucky could challenge them for conference supremacy. These up-and-coming teams keep getting better, while Tennessee still seems to be looking for answers. This year's SEC race is gonna be an exciting one.

There's a feeling of finality about this season for certain coaches whose teams have long struggled in the conference. A feeling so pervasive that certain natives -- er, fans -- have begun dancing around the fire chanting and singing ceremonial tribal chants.

The hottest seat of them all was reserved for South Carolina's David Odom until he announced his retirement on Friday. Odom never had an SEC record better than 8-8 and was 37-61 against conference opponents.

Mark Gottfried, Alabama

The hottest seat at present has to be reserved for Alabama's Mark Gottfried. The Tide were once again picked in the preseason as one of the more talented teams in the league. With stars like Alonzo Gee, Richard Hendrix and Ronald Steele on the roster, Bama seemed like they could be poised to make a run for an SEC title. Unfortunately, Ronald Steele's knees are still getting the best of him and he's been forced to watch his teammates play from the bench. Despite losing Steele (again), the Tide are still talented enough to win plenty of games. Right? Wrong. Alabama is 11-7 overall and more importantly, 0-3 in the SEC. Even the most stolid of Bama hoops blogs, the Alabama Basketball blog, is starting to post questions about Coach Mark Gottfried's salary.

It's not that the two-time defending national champion Gators are bad. They're talented, but young and rather skinny. Oh, and despite a 13-2 record coming into tonight's game against the Crimson Tide, almost all of those 13 wins came against paycheck opponents. They lost convincingly to the two decent teams they've played: FSU and Ohio State.

So nobody, not even your resident FanHouse Gator, expected them to waltz into Tuscaloosa and beat a pretty decent Alabama team in their SEC opener. But that's what they did. Final: Gators 90, Tide 83.

The Gators trailed for the entire first half, finding themselves down by 10 points before freshman point guard Jai Lucas sank a trey at the buzzer, cutting the lead to 7. The Gators had allowed the Tide to score 47 points in twenty minutes. Unacceptable? Yes, but what can a young fella do when the hot hands of juniors Alonzo Gee and Richard Hendrix are pouring the points on? Apparently, Billy Donovan gave his team a tongue-lashing because they came out with renewed defensive intensity in the second half.

Despite that effort, they found themselves down by 10 points yet again thanks to a burst of scoring from the Tide, but the Gators managed to close the gap thanks to their prolific freshmen. G-F Nick Calathes had a banner night, scoring 21 points, grabbing 9 rebounds and dishing 7 assists. And supershorty Jai Lucas managed to score 19 points, including perfect shooting from the free throw line.

If you blinked, you may have missed the inaugural Big East/SEC Invitational. It's really just a micro-conference challenge. Only 4 teams from each conference a year play (and it's mercifully only contracted to run for four years at this point). ESPN handled all aspects of the "Invitational," right down to getting Pizza Hut as the title sponsor. So, while they consulted with the conferences, they had a huge say in the teams selected.

The field was announced last year. The Big East had Georgetown, West Virginia, Villanova and Providence to face Alabama, Auburn, LSU and South Carolina of the SEC. Two of the Big East teams were in the NCAA last year and a third won the NIT. The four SEC teams were not even participants in the NIT. All four of the Big East participants were .500 or better in conference, while all four of the SEC teams were below the break-even point. Essentially, the SEC was set-up to fail.

The SEC is trying to get going... trying and trying... and there's just not much there.

So far this season, the SEC has managed the following:

• Alabama loses to Belmont
• Pre-season fave Tennessee has 30 points hung on them by the Texas Longhorns
• Georgia loses to Wisconsin by 19 points
• Georgetown beats Alabama in SEC territory
• Arkansas gets dominated by Providence
• Florida shies away from contact against a less-than-impressive ACC rival (FSU)
• Kentucky's pride withers after getting blown out by Gardner-Webb... at home
• Kentucky can't hang with UNC, which isn't exactly embarassing, but it's getting embarassingly routine
• Auburn loses to Tulane by 15 points
• Mississippi State loses to Miami/Ohio

By far, the worst of these is the Wildcats' mindbending loss to Gardner-Webb and Alabama getting their tires slashed by Belmont, but none of it looks particularly good.

Alabama is without Ronald Steele for the year (what else is new?) and gave Georgetown everything they could handle in a 70-60 loss, but when the stadium is filled with crimson and you lead at the half, you've just gotta win those games, baby.

Florida's filled with skinny freshmen who can shoot, but don't really know how to play physical yet.

Georgia's suspended or dismissed practically everyone on the team.

Kentucky's just a mess. Alex Legion is transferring -- no wait, he's staying! -- no wait, he's going again, Billy Gillispie can't understand why the university is objecting to morals clause issues in his contract despite the fact he's dating a 19-year old, and half the team is injured.

There's just not much to be proud of yet, and if Tennessee can't get their act together it's going to be a long season.

Every year Cinderella captures our hearts in the NCAA Tournament. They begin fittings for their glass slippers in November, though. They Do Not Come From Nowhere introduces you to the teams that will be busting brackets nationwide come March.

There's no doubt that the hot conference in college hoops right now is the Atlantic Sun. Gardner-Webb beat Kentucky in Lexington and Mercer took out O.J. Mayo in his first college game in the last two weeks. And then last year's entrant in the Big Dance, the Belmont Bruins, won at Cincinnati to give the conference its greatest exposure ever. It turns out that the Bruins were just warming up.

Belmont went into Tuscaloosa last night and beat the Crimson Tide 85-83 for their second win over a major conference team in 10 days. Justin Hare knocked down a jumper from the foul line with seconds to play, the 13th time he's beaten the final horn for a win or overtime in his Belmont career. Hare is the best player in the conference and the big reason why they are favorites to make a third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.

How much of a chance do they have to make noise when they get there?

Last season, Alabama came into the season believing they could challenge the the other teams in the SEC not named Florida. Preseason, top-15 team, with big dreams.Their season quickly derailed.

Jermareo Davidson suffered through two personal tragedies in a month that left him a shell of himself on the court -- no matter how hard he tried to put it out of his head. Ron Steele -- their All-American point guard -- was in and out of the lineup all season battling balky knees. The Crimson Tide wasn't deep enough to handle those sort of personnel losses -- and had no better options even as they struggled with their problems (mental and physical) on the court.

In the off-season, Ron Steele had surgery on both knees. Everything looked good for his return this season, and 'Bama fans could anticipate an excellent shot at making the NCAA Tournament. Then he needed more work on the knees. Now he will be taking a medical redshirt for the entire season.

"The doctors have told me my future for playing is good, but right now the timing for me to heal and be back in shape like I need to be to play on the level we play isn't on my side," Steele said.

The two-time Alabama Mr. Basketball is expected to graduate in December and said he would begin work toward a second degree. The move might allow Steele to play a season with his brother, Andrew, a highly regarded prospect who has verbally committed to play for the Tide in 2008-09.

Nice that his brother will be playing with him in 2008. It's worth wondering, however, whether Mark Gottfried will still be the Crimson Tide coach by that point.

This one has been in the works for a while, but it's finally been announced. The Big East and SEC will play a limited challenge series over the next several years. I'm sorry, they are calling it an Invitational. It will be a four game rotation for the next four years.

The games will take place on December 5-6. On December 5, two games will be played at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham Alabama. The two games will be: West Virginia-Auburn and Georgetown-Alabama. On December 6, the games will be at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That will have South Carolina-Providence and LSU-Villanova. The games will be aired on ESPN2 and ESPN.

"This Invitational will showcase two of the premier conferences in college basketball," said Pete Derzis, senior vice president and general manager of ESPN Regional Television. "Both conferences compete at the highest level, as evidenced by their recent appearances in the Final Four, and we are pleased to feature them on two consecutive nights on our networks."

Of course, only 2 of the Big East teams selected for next year were in the NCAA Tournament and none of the SEC schools even made the NIT.

How do the teams get picked each year? Well, that gets left to ESPN "in consultation" with the conferences. Considering ESPN will be handling the "Big East/SEC Invitational's organization, operation, sponsorship, marketing efforts and more," I'm guessing the consultations pretty much follow whatever ESPN tells the conferences to do.