The Iowa men’s basketball team will be announced sometime this week as the eighth team scheduled to play in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. The preseason tournament is held at Atlantis Resorts in Nassau, Bahamas. This year’s tourney is Nov. 28-30.
CBSSports.com senior basketball writer Jeff Goodman first reported the news.
Iowa joins a field that includes Kansas, Tennessee, UNLV, USC, Villanova, Wake Forest and Xavier. Kansas and Villanova made the NCAA tournament this past season.
The Hawkeyes were originally scheduled to play in the Great Alaska Shootout, but Wisconsin-Green Bay took their spot upon Atlantis’ invitation to fill the eighth and final spot in what is considered a more prestigious event.
This will dramatically effect Iowa’s non-conference strength of schedule, which is a major factor in the NCAA tournament selection process. The Hawkeyes’ non-conference SOS in 2012-13 was an abysmal 313.
Head coach Fran McCaffery’s squad is due to carry lofty expectations heading into the 2013-14 campaign, including a possible preseason Top 25 ranking. Iowa returns all but one scholarship player after finishing as runners-up in the 2013 NIT tournament and winning 11 of its final 15 games.
