Basketball teams to meet in Des Moines for one-day event

The state's four Division I men's basketball programs will meet in an inaugural event on Dec. 15 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, sources from multiple schools confirmed to The Gazette earlier this afternoon.

Iowa will meet Northern Iowa and Iowa State will play Drake. An official announcement is slated for 3 p.m.

Iowa and Iowa State will continue to play home-and-home. As members of the Missouri Valley Conference, Drake and Northern Iowa will continue to play at least twice each year.

The event will end the annual home-and-home series among the four programs, which began in 1988, when Iowa and Northern Iowa began rotating home sites. The Cyclones have played UNI all but two years since 1980. Iowa and Drake have played every season but one since 1965 and rotated sites each season, save a four-year stretch from 1978-1981.

Perhaps the greatest casualty is the Iowa State-Drake series, the state's most-played men's rivalry. The schools have played 170 times, meeting every year since 1908.