Iowa clears 10,000 tickets sold for NIT game

I'm hearing Iowa has sold tickets in mass-quantities for its first-round NIT home game against Indiana State Wednesday night. Iowa assistant sports information director Matt Weitzel said about 10,000 tickets were sold Monday.

It may have been more than that. And they didn't go on sale until 1 p.m.

At 5:37 p.m., the ticket page on Hawkeyesports.com said this:

Ticket sales have been suspended until 6:00PM Central. The game is not sold out.

The Dayton-Iowa NIT game in Iowa City last year drew 13,190.

A Facebook commenter said the UI's campus police were busy writing parking tickets for people who were lined up at Carver-Hawkeye Arena to buy tickets.

And that's with the school on spring break.

Robert Morris in suburban Pittsburgh (Moon Township, actually) has quite the ticket-demand for its first-round NIT home game, too. The Colonials are hosting Kentucky because Kentucky's 23,500-seat Rupp Arena is unavailable due to it being in use for the NCAA tournament.

Robert Morris' Charles L. Sewall Center (capacity 3,056) is sold out for Tuesday's game. As a result, Robert Morris has cancelled its Tuesday night classes, because two-thirds of its students are commuters, and the parking spaces are needed for people to see their Colonials try to upset the 2012 national-champions.

Tickets at Iowa and Robert Morris are $15 for adults, $5 for youths.

At Southern Mississippi, a No. 1 NIT seed, Coach Donnie Tyndall bought 1,000 tickets for students who attend USM's Wednesday home game against Charleston Southern.