This could have been the Hawkeyes (sarcasm alert)

Oregon State beat Stanford Wednesday night in men's basketball, 65-62 in overtime.

It could have been Iowa hosting that game. I'll explain after the jump.

The Stanford-OSU meeting wasn't a Pac-10 game. It was much bigger than that.

It was a College Basketball Invitational semifinal. The Beavers' victory upped their record to 16-17 and sent them into a best-of-three final series against UTEP, starting next Monday.

That's not a misprint. Oregon State was 13-17 when it was invited to the second-annual CBI. It then got consecutive home games against Houston, Vermont and Stanford, and won the three games by a total of eight points, and with the use of two overtimes.

Vermont traveled 3,000 miles for its game.

Why did Oregon State keep getting home games when it had the worst record of any of the 129 Division I teams in postseason tourneys? (Yes, 129!) I can only guess. And the guess is that it's because Oregon State's coach is Craig Robinson, the brother-in-law of President Obama.

Tax breaks for the CBI, maybe?

So, about Iowa ... The Hawkeyes were 15-17. Why wasn't that good enough for a CBI invite if Oregon State's 13-17 was.

Had the Hawkeyes gotten an invitation ... wait a second. It couldn't have had home games after the first round because Carver-Hawkeye Arena was tied up with preparations and then use for the NCAA women's tourney.

But, let's say Iowa would have won a game, then another, and another. All its transferring and possibly soon-to-be-transferring players would be preoccupied with playing more ball. The winning would have brought the coaches and players together.

Getting a postseason championship would have made the Hawkeyes the tightest team this side of, well, Northern Iowa. Jake Kelly, after averaging 25 points a game and being the CBI's MVP, would have carried a Tiger Hawk flag across the Carver floor and said "Iowa forever!"

And the Hawkeyes would have finished the season with a winning record. Top recruits would start de-committing from power programs and casting their eyes Iowa's way.

But nooooo, the CBI chose Oregon State instead. And now the brother of the president's wife is two wins from snipping nets.

Meanwhile, players reportedly are leaving Iowa in multitudes and that 15-17 record is still 15-17.

Into every life a little rain must fall. But since when does it rain more in Iowa City than the Pacific Northwest?