Northern Iowa to play in 2011 South Padre Island tournament

[Da Coach]

UNI will take part in 2011 South Padre Island Invitational-

http://www.unipanthers.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/061511aaa.html

UNI will play Western Carolina and Northern Colorado at home, then play Rice University and Providence College in South Padre.
The 8-team South Padre field includes Western Carolina University, University of Northern Colorado, Southern University and Florida A&M University, UNI, Rice, Providence, and Iowa State.

[tornado]

Very weak field -- nothing to help UNI's RPI -- just a bunch of medium & low strength mid-majors and two BCS bottom dwellers..

[ShockerHoops]

Very weak field -- nothing to help UNI's RPI -- just a bunch of medium & low strength mid-majors and two BCS bottom dwellers..

That is exactly what I was thinking.

[TheAsianSensation]

UNI dodged about 27 bullets missing both the SWAC team and the MEAC team in this.

At least Northern Colorado is a premier low-major team. But yikes. What in the world happened to the South Padre Invitational? South Padre is usually a bigtime boon to the RPI.

[Da Coach]

It a similar phenomenon to most of the once-prestigious tournament like the Hawaii tournaments, the Alaskan tournaments, and others. The top majors avoid them now, because they don't know ahead of time who they could end up playing, and they could get upset by a lower team. Why should the big boys risk upsets in a tournament like this when they can buy games at home all day long, make more money, and get guaranteed wins. The tournaments are left scratching the bottom of the barrel to get teams to fill their fields.
We've seen Bradley get screwed a couple times in the last 3 years when the Top of the World Classic folded in 2008, then again in 2010 when the Springfield HOF Classic couldn't get enough D1 teams to fill their field and had to add D2 (remember Texas A&M-Kingsville) and even D3 schools.

[TheAsianSensation]

I don't think it's necessarily filling up on buy wins (although that's still a factor). With more and more new tournament cropping up, we're seeing the top teams start to spread out more and more, making it tougher to get as many good teams at the same place at the same time. The tournament product of non-conference basketball has been diluted by too many tournaments.

There's also been a small increase in made-for-TV events, like the recent deal that has UNC/MSU playing on a naval ship or whatever it is. The top of the top are starting to pool together to play each other a little bit more often, leaving the rank-and-file behind.

[tornado]

The big schools are spoiled --and unless they get the option of naming their opponents they won't come and play

[TylerDurden]

UNI has a bunch of unknowns for next season, so this tournament isn't as bad for them as it would have been two years ago when they were one of the top MVC teams.

The field looks like it could yield some wins for the Panthers -- which is what you want from a team that will likely finish out of NCAA at-large contention.

Sometimes, like with Drake a couple years ago, a team surprises and the schedule hurts them with seeding and lowers the opinions about the other teams in the league, but that doesn't happen much.

As TAS said, avoiding the SWAC and MEAC teams is always a good thing.

[tornado]

They are clearly the class of this tourney and should win it but it'll do little for their at-large-bid resume...

[FarmerClone]

They are clearly the class of this tourney and should win it but it'll do little for their at-large-bid resume...

Iowa State will get their chance to prove you wrong in Hilton this year. UNI has been better than ISU lately but that may change this year.

[TylerDurden]

Also, don't sleep on Rice.

They have their top four scorers back. They certainly weren't world beaters last year (though they did beat Memphis once), but they should be much better.

I also think Iowa State will be decent next year.

I think UNI has a chance to win this, but they aren't clearly better than the field and I'm doubting they're in at-large consideration --- although I wouldn't put it past Ben Jacobson to have them in the mix.