When Iona and Army play against each other on Tuesday, there was more to the exhibition game than basketball. The purpose of the game was to raise money for hurricane relief in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico. Other schools around the country like Kansas, LSU, Kentucky and Duke have participated in exhibition games with the hope of helping people, who’s  been affected by the hurricanes.

“It [the hurricanes] has really affected a lot of people around the country this year,” Iona head coach Tim Cluess said after the game. “Any small part we could do, we are really proud to be apart of it.”

The game raised up to 3,000 dollars in ticket sales, which will go towards three charitable organizations: Fondos Unidos de Puerto Rico, the Greater Houston Community Fund and the Florida Disaster Fund.

Coach Cluess and the rest of the team were glad to be able to help out with a serious issue that’s impacted the country. Cluess believes the NCAA should do more charitable games in the future and use its platform to help people in need.

“Honestly, this is something the NCAA should allow us to do every single year,” Cluess said. “We don’t do enough of that in college sports.”

“I think if all the funds are going towards whatever organizations that’s helping people, why wouldn’t we do it every year,” Cluess continued. “It’s great they allowed it this year and I’m hoping in the future they will allow it again.”

Army head coach Jimmy Hunter gave Iona credit for arranging the game at a short amount of time.

“We didn’t know we would have the opportunity to do this until this week,”  Allen said. “I’m super impressed at what Iona was able to do in a short amount of time.”

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