The better news: It won’t be playing any more teams from the Summit League this season.
BIG PICTURE Iowa: The Hawkeyes are one of the few teams that could argue that the NIT might actually be better for them than the NCAA Tournament. Iowa started four underclassmen nearly all year, and a long run in this tournament would give the Hawkeyes valuable experience heading into 2017-18 – when a trip to the NCAA Tournament will again be expected. South Dakota: After finishing with a losing record in ’15-16, the Coyotes won the conference title this year. Losses in the conference tournament and the NIT shouldn’t take away from the fact that South Dakota improved greatly under Smith, now in his third season. “Played super hard. Just made some mistakes,” Smith said. - See more at: http://btn.com/2017/03/15/jordan-bohannon-double-double-lifts-iowa-past-south-dakota-in-nit/#sthash.0Bi5qHui.dpuf
The Hawkeyes struggled again with a team from that conference Wednesday night before Jordan Bohannon and friends finally took control to claim an 87-75 victory over a feisty South Dakota squad in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Bohannon scored 19 points and for the second straight game established a new career high in assists with 11. Peter Jok led the Hawkeyes with 20 points, Tyler Cook added 18 on 8-for-8 shooting from the field and Isaiah Moss netted 16 important points.
Iowa (19-14) will host No. 4 seed TCU on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. The Horned Frogs advanced Wednesday with a 66-59 victory over Fresno State.
The top-seeded Hawkeyes suffered an embarrassing 98-89 loss to Summit member Omaha back in early December, a defeat that uglied up their NCAA Tournament resume, and for about 30 minutes they had almost as much trouble with eighth-seeded South Dakota, which won the league’s regular-season title.
“They were a tough team,’’ Cook said. “They just kept coming at us.’’
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