You can't ever truly appreciate the best of times without going through the worst of times. It's true. A pint of Guinness tastes that much better because I know the negative potential of what beer can taste like (Mountain Creek, I'm talking to you).
The same principle applies to everything. You need some bad with the good, just so that the appreciation is there.
John Travolta had "Battlefield Earth."
The James Bond series had "Octopussy."
Kevin Federline had Britney Spears — who railroaded the blossoming lyrical genie by having two of his kids and waiting until K-Fed exploded onto the music scene to drop him, and now lives off child support and alimony for the rest of her days.
But the point is that for everything, for every bit of awesomeness, there is a little bit of suckiness to balance it out.
For in-season NCAA Basketball tournaments, that blip on the crap-dar is the South Padre Invitational.
The Great Alaska Shootout, the Maui Invitational, the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic and the preseason NIT are all examples of a great tradition in college basketball: the in-season tournament. It gives fans an early gauge of how good their team can be and helps prepare teams for what they are going to see in March, should they get that far.
However, the SPI is definitely the Mohawked black sheep of these tournaments. Everything about it was simply bizarre.
Let's start with the locale. South Padre Island is the most southeastern point of Texas, a tiny splinter of land surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico. It's more crowded over spring break than the spandex line at a professional wrestlers' convention and more deserted the rest of the year than the Mel Gibson fan club.
All the bars ID, but none of the liquor stores do; drinks twice the size of a Wando's Fishbowl are somehow appropriate for a party of two, and the police enforce drunken walking with more zeal than drunken driving. It's generally a pretty backward place, and the SPI provided further evidence as such.
The games were played in a convention center, which is understandable seeing as you wouldn't expect a 10,000-seat arena to exist on an island that has a permanent population relative to that of Antarctica. It's a good thing, too, since most of the 2,000 seats available were unoccupied.
The most popular place in the "arena" wasn't the court or the stands, but the hospitality room, which appeared to be decorated for an 8-year-old's birthday party, with shiny streamers and several plastic posters with basketballs and the phrase "THE PARTY IS HERE!" hung up around the room.
The room was apparently top-secret, as the official who informed the few media members of its existence did so in a very hushed, whispering tone, as if he were planning a prison break.
The "tournament" set-up was exactly that: a set-up. The four smaller schools involved — Southern, Eastern Tennessee State, Sam Houston State and Delaware State — all had to travel to the four bigger schools — Wisconsin, Auburn, Oklahoma State and Missouri State — for two road games in the first two rounds of the tournament, virtually eliminating any chance for an upset and setting up a sexier tourney final.
Making the schedule even more bizarre was the fact that the marquee games were scheduled at 11 a.m., while the less intriguing ETSU-Sam Houston State matchup was slated for primetime, with a 7 p.m. tip-off.
The "arena" brought in a deejay to provide music for interludes during the games. The song choice was questionable, with audio selections including "It's Raining Men."
You might've thought it was raining in the arena the way the court was slick, as the mop-up crew of three or four pre-teens with hotel room-sized towels were not NBA-caliber. As a result, the paint looked like a street corner layered in black ice, as unsuspecting player after player hit the deck after losing his footing. A dog with a rag tied to its tail probably could've been more effective.
The games themselves were actually rather entertaining, with most coming down to a couple of points. In fact, the championship game between Missouri State and Oklahoma State actually went into overtime.
However, you can bet the motivation for the players wasn't to bring home a big shiny SPI championship trophy, because there wasn't one to be found. For their effort, the Cowboys were rewarded with a framed aerial photograph of South Padre Island. It wasn't even as impressive as some of the posters you could buy on State Street. It probably took about five minutes and $12 to put together this championship trophy.
The Oklahoma State players must've realized it too, as they celebrated like they had won a free small orange juice at McDonald's in the Monopoly game and not a major tournament. The best moment of the trophy ceremony was watching an OSU player pester Missouri State's top gunner as the all-tournament team posed for a photograph.
The teams themselves took the tournament very seriously; so much so that one head coach could be found watching college football while his team was in its pregame shoot-around. Later on, he could be found complaining that his players weren't understanding what they were trying to do offensively. Go figure.
Maybe the world's weirdest tournament could be best summed up by the weary-eyed official who looked so fatigued that he appeared as if he'd just taken a couple trips through the spin cycle. This man who helped bring the SPI to life could only manage four words at the post-tournament party, minutes after the final game had ended.
"Thank God it's over."
Dave is a senior majoring in journalism and English. You can ask him about getting pulled over — twice — on South Padre Island over Thanksgiving weekend by contacting him at [email protected].
