Iowa had twice as many fans as any of the other eight NIT games Tuesday

Mar. 14, 2012 12:51 am

NIT Fever was contained to one place in America Tuesday night, though the National Invitation Tournament had nine games from coast to coast.

That place? Iowa City, Iowa.

The Iowa-Dayton game drew a crowd of 13,190 hungry-for-postseason-basketball Hawkeye fans. It was the first postseason game Iowa had played since 2006, and the fans' hunger was sated with the Hawkeyes' 84-75 triumph.

No two other NIT crowds Tuesday added up to as much as 11,447. Many were played in gyms that can't hold 13,190 fans, but no one but Iowa had anything resembling a near-sellout. Well, Seton Hall played its game in its 2,600-seat Walsh Gym as opposed to the 18,000-seat Prudential Center in Newark that it usually uses. The Pirates were almost 1,000 shy of a sellout, though.

Iowa's crowd was larger than the smallest five combined, as the following numbers detail:

The crowds:

Iowa 13,190 for Dayton

Tennessee 6,289 for Savannah State

Oregon 5,189 for LSU. Oregon hosts Iowa in the quarterfinals Sunday at 4 p.m., Central time.