Playoffs are about to get under way for both the Simpson men’s and women’s basketball teams, however, with some severe weathering taking place there is an added twist to shake things up.

Iowa is expected to receive around eight inches of snow Wednesday night continuing on into Thursday. This is not only going to affect the Simpson teams, but everyone in the conference, especially the teams that have to travel.

The men’s basketball team squeezed their way into the door to get the sixth and final seed in the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament. While their first game takes place Tuesday at number three seeded Dubuque, if they advance then they most likely will not play until Friday, despite the second round game supposed to be played on Thursday.

Head Coach of the Simpson men’s basketball team, Charles Zanders, believes that the games being postponed could either benefit or hurt teams, but in his opinion it helps his team.

“I actually think that it will benefit us because it doesn’t allow teams to prepare. At the end of the day we are going to have to be on the road anyway, so that in itself is going to be hard,” Zanders said.

Unfortunately, Simpson fell to Dubuque on Tuesday 71-63 ending their season.

The women’s team on the other hand, has locked up the number one seed giving themselves a first round bye. This means that they were scheduled to play on Thursday, but that game will also likely be moved to Friday due to the weather.

To shed a little more on how the tournament will shape up, Commissioner Chuck Yrigoyen gave his insight on the situation.

“We are going to have a conference call Wednesday to decide what to do with the games,” Yrigoyen said. “Obviously priority number one is to not put our student athletes or coaches in an unsafe situation. The tournament has to be done by Sunday because selections to the NCAA Tournament take place Monday morning.”

Commissioner Yrigoyen believes that this delay will not hurt anyone and sees it as one more day to rest and get some work in. He also believes that in the case of the women’s team who have the first round bye, will still come out on top.

“I have got to believe that Coach Niemuth will prepare his team regardless of what the weather is. I do not see it as having a major impact on them,” Yrigoyen said. They have been successful the entire year and I can’t imagine that the weather will have an impact on any of the teams to be honest.”

While the weather will play a role overall no one believes that it is going to affect how teams would end up finishing in the tournament otherwise. The decision will be made tomorrow on where the conference looks to go and when completion of the tournament will be, before Monday.

Editor’s Note: Keep it here with Simpson Student Media for full storm team coverage throughout Thursday.