Iowa AD Gary Barta on football night games, basketball classic in D.M.

Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta was asked about several subjects last time at the Linn County I-Club outing. Among the topics include night football games, the Dale Howard Classic in Des Moines and the completion of Iowa's Carver-Hawkeye Arena renovation.

Barta said the networks and Big Ten select night football games from now through the end of April and first part of May.

"The night games haven't been decided yet," Barta said Thursday. "We haven't yet been asked to play a night game so they still have a couple of weeks to still be determined. It doesn't look like there would be one, but they still have an opportunity to pick us over the next couple of weeks."

The Big Ten's television contracts stipulate the schools cannot play night games in November. Friday, it was announced that Nebraska's inaugural Big Ten game at Wisconsin will air at night on ESPN.

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It seems likely Iowa men's basketball will play all of its non-Big Ten games within the state. The school will play its exempt tournament in Iowa City and Des Moines, concluding with a game against Creighton at Wells Fargo Arena. The tournament is named after Dale Howard, an Iowa Falls car dealer who recently gave the athletics department $5 million to renovateCarver-Hawkeye Arena and the football practice facility.

"It follows the sequence of the rules of today's basketball tournaments and how they can be run," Barta said. "When we started talking about it, we've talked about how can we get a game in Des Moines and this was the way that we came up with. I think our fans, based on our visit to Polk County the other nights I had a lot of positive feedback. I think it will be a great crowd. We'll try it and see how it goes. If if goes well, hopefully we'll continue it for a while."

The game originally was slated for Nov. 26, a Saturday, but that conflicted with the original Big Ten football schedule which had Iowa playing at Nebraska that day. Then plan was to move the basketball game to Sunday, Nov. 27, but the Iowa-Nebraska football game was switched to Friday, Nov. 25 so the basketball date has yet to be finalized.

Iowa priced its tickets for a 20-game home schedule and will play the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in Iowa City. Iowa will travel to Iowa State and Northern Iowa in December.

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The$47 million Carver-Hawkeye Arena renovation is still due for a late July completion, Barta said.

"There might be a few things that we scramble at the end, but I feel good that it will done all be done by the end of the summer," Barta said.