Iowa-Utah second-round NIT game has set its day and time in Salt Lake City

Where else you want for be for a party on a Sunday night but Salt Lake City?

After most of the dust of the first week of NCAA tournament play has settled, then comes the battle of the four-letter words.

The Iowa men’s basketball team will play Utah in a second-round National Invitation Tournament game Sunday at 8 p.m. (CT) at the Jon M. Huntsman Center on the University of Utah campus.

That’s according to the schedules of the Iowa and Utah teams on their athletic departments’ websites.

This is a game for the last seed standing in the Villanova Bracket. Villanova, the No. 1 seed, fell at home to VCU Wednesday night. No. 4-seed UCF was beaten at home Tuesday by South Florida.

So, USF will play VCU in a second-round game and a bowl of alphabet soup, and the winner will meet the winner of the Iowa-Utah game next Tuesday or Wednesday at Iowa City or Salt Lake City.

The winner of that will go to the NIT semifinals in Indianapolis on April 2.

Iowa (19-14) beat Kansas State in Iowa City Tuesday, 90-81. The attendance was 4,532. Utah (20-14) eliminated UC Irvine 84-75 the same night before a crowd of 3,137.

Utah and Iowa have met just once before. The Utes won 92-88 in 1964 in the semifinals of the Los Angeles Classic.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com