No...actually no one could make this argument with a straight face.
Look, I'm not going to suggest that the MVC is even close to the Big 12, and any Panther fan who thinks it is needs to have their head checked (although I'm still waiting to see actual evidence from the OP that someone actually wrote that, just like I'm waiting to see that someone actually has UNI on a 3 line at this point), but the committee, contrary to some popular belief, doesn't take conference affiliation into account when they make their selections.
If you did leave out UNI solely based on their being in the MVC, you would have to completely ignore their Top 20 RPI, BPI, KenPom, as well as a Top 25 Sagarin rating. Even if we lose today I don't think those numbers will drop too much to bring any validity to that argument.
"We"? Are you an ISU fan or a UNI fan? You have ISU in your screen name.
Anyway, back to the argument here. I said that UNI should be in the dance with a loss today, but I am just not impressed with their resume all that much. They might be really good, we just don't know because they haven't really beaten anyone yet. ISU plays better teams every single week than UNI does all year.
It would be like taking the 4A Iowa high school football champion and putting them in the top high school football conference down in Texas. They might be undefeated in Iowa, but in the best conference in Texas they might go .500 if they are lucky.
So what would UNI do in the Big 12, playing KU, Baylor, OU, and WV every week instead of Illinois State, Indiana State, and Evansville? The answer is, we don't know. I think they would get pretty worn down over the course of the year personally. It is a knock down drag out all year long. UNI has weeks at a time where they don't face anyone with a pulse. That is pretty easy on your players.
That is also why it wouldn't be shocking to see UNI upset some people in the NCAA Tourney either. They are so much more "fresh" than the P5 teams that are all beaten up and worn out.
UNI is a really good basketball team, no doubt, but it's comparing apples and oranges when trying to compare them with someone like ISU. UNI's league is just so much inferior to the Big 12 it isn't even funny.