We all knew Iowa wouldn’t be dancing, didn’t we?

Who cares what Dick Vitale and Jim Nance think about the NCAA basketball pairings?

Since when did Vitale and Nance know anything about which teams should have been sent to Salt Lake City?

Who cares what Clark Kellogg thinks should have happened?

Get right down to it and Kellogg’s opinions don’t mean any more than your opinion and mine.

Forget all that stuff.

Iowa is going to the NIT.

So get excited.

Or at least try to get excited.

If you’re not excited already, let me tell you that the Hawkeyes play Valparaiso at 8:05 p.m. Monday in a first-round NIT game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.

Now, that should get you excited.

Obviously, they figure the Hawkeyes will attract a large crowd. Or at least a reasonably-large crowd.

Don’t forget, money is the name of the game in the NIT.

I guess it’s got to be a big game because ESPN is televising it. I assume Vitale won’t be on the broadcast team. He’ll likely still be sitting in the studio, criticizing the NCAA pairings.

Anyway, it’s a neat deal that the NIT thinks so much of Iowa after its 63-61 loss to LSU in the first round of the tournament last season.

Of course, Luke Recker and Reggie Evans were playing for the Hawkeyes then. They were, as Vitale would say, big-time disappointments.

So here we go with a fresh start in the ol’ NIT.

You’ve got to hand it to these 2002-2003 Hawkeyes. The preseason predictions called for them to be on spring break at this time of the year, but they’ve proven to be a gritty, gutty, determined – hey, how’s that for darned good sportswriter terms? – bunch of players.

Valpo is located an hour southeast of Chicago, has an enrollment of 3,600 and is coached by Scott Drew, who has a 20-10 record in his first season.

If the name Drew sounds familiar to you, it’s because it should. Scott Drew’s father, Homer, was a longtime coach at Valparaiso. Homer pulled off a number of NCAA tournament upsets before turning the job over to Scott this season.

One of Homer’s standout players was Bryce Drew, another son. Bryce kept making miraculous, game-winning baskets when he played for Homer.

The reason Valparaiso is in the NIT and not the NCAA is because it lost to a school usually called IUPUI, 66-64, last week in the Mid-Continent tournament’s championship game.

IUPUI stands for Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Now you can understand why it’s called IUPUI.

But, hey, anytime you can get Indiana and Purdue to agree to combine on anything—especially a university—that’s a big deal.

Valparaiso was the Mid-Continent’s regular-season champion. The Crusaders won 15 of their last 18 games. So I’d say it’s pretty obvious the Crusaders won’t come into Carver-Hawkeye Arena feeling like they don’t belong.

Monday night’s game will mark Valparaiso’s first appearance on ESPN. I’m sure they’ll want to make a big impression with the network guys.

The Drews have recruited heavily internationally. Indeed, Raitis Grafs, a 6-11 center from Riga, Latvia, was named a first-team all-Mid-Continent player for the third time this season after averaging 16.8 points. He’s Valparaiso’s all-time leader in blocked shots with 227.

Stalin Ortiz, a 6-3 guard from Cali, Colombia, was picked as the conference’s sixth man of the year. Ortiz averaged 16.4 points and 6.4 rebounds in 14 conference games.

Valparaiso also has players from Angola, Puerto Rico and Finland.

So what? Iowa has Jared Reiner from South Dakota.

He’s pretty good, too.