Iowa State men’s basketball: Cyclones to play in 2015 Emerald Coast Classic
By Brian Spaen
It’s official — the Iowa State men’s basketball team has been invited to play at the Emerald Coast Classic in 2015.
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Here’s the full roster of schools that are in the event next season:
- Iowa State
- Illinois
- Virginia Tech
- UAB
- Chattanooga
- Alabama State
- Chicago State
- Jacksonville State
A report from early October by CBS Sports showed that those top four teams would in fact be the featured teams in next year’s Thanksgiving event, and it’s held true in the official announcement.
This tournament will be like similar early season tournaments where the headline teams will play each other in the tournament but will have regular season games against the bottom-tier opponents. Iowa State will play one or a couple of the last four teams on that list before the actual tournament begins, even though the tournament calls them “first and second round games.”
The 2015 Emerald Coast Classic will be hosted by Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, Florida, on November 27th and 28th. The Cyclones will be paired up with the Fighting Illini, the Hokies, or the Blazers and will take on the winner or loser of the other game the following day.
This year, the semifinals don’t look to be televised while CBS Sports Network has the championship game. Hopefully next year that will be amended and the games will at least be available to watch online. Worst case scenario, I’d expect to see Cyclones.tv pick up the semifinal.
The four highlight teams that made the tournament this year are Middle Tennessee, Cincinnati, Creighton, and Ole Miss.