NEW YORK – The Baylor Bears won the NIT championship by defeating Iowa 74-54 Thursday and cut down the nets in victory at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The NIT trophy is Baylor’s first-ever NIT Championship, and the Bears also became the first Big 12 team to ever take home the NIT hardware.

The Baylor men’s basketball team will take on the Iowa Hawkeyes tonight in the NIT Championship game at Madison Square Garden. The game will tip off at 8 p.m.

The Hawkeyes are 25-12 on the season and are coming off of a 71-60 win over Maryland.

The Baylor Bears defeated the BYU Cougars 76-70 Tuesday in the semifinal round of the NIT in Madison Square Garden. No. 2 seed Baylor and No. 3 seed BYU were in a closely contested game until Baylor’s senior superstar guard Pierre Jackson decided to go off for 15 second-half points to push the Bears into the NIT championship game.

The Baylor Bears defeated the Providence Friars in the quarterfinals of the NIT 79-68 on Wednesday night to move on to the semifinals on Tuesday in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

“When you’ve got a lot on the line like a chance to go to New York and play in a Final Four-type atmosphere at Madison Square Garden, you know that you don’t have to motivate as a coach,” head coach Scott Drew said. “Our guys were extremely excited all day long for this game and Providence really played well in that first half, and we couldn’t stop them and in the second half I thought we did a much better job defensively. The big thing was that we took care of the ball all game with 19 assists and only five turnovers. Pierre Jackson had 13 assists and zero turnovers. I think everybody wants a point guard who can play a game like that and he was outstanding.”

The Baylor Bears men’s basketball team has a goal of traveling to New York City to play in the “Mecca of basketball,” Madison Square Garden.

If the Bears can defeat the Providence Friars at 8 p.m. today at the Ferrell Center, then they will head to the Big Apple for the next step of their NIT mission.