The local boys substate basketball tournaments will be held where they belong again this year.

Brett Nanninga, an associate director with the Iowa High School Athletic Association, has confirmed that the local Class 3A and Class 4A substates will be held at the U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Cedar Rapids again this season.

"You bet," Nanninga told the Metro Sports Report. "It's just a matter of getting the details done now."

The Class 3A substate tournament, featuring the Xavier Saints, drew 2,078 fans to the U.S. Cellular Center for a pair of games last season. The Class 4A substate, featuring Kennedy, Washington and Linn-Mar, drew 2,554 fans the next night.

The substate tournament had been absent from the U.S. Cellular Center while the arena was being remodeled, but they returned to great acclaim in 2015.

"Everybody that I talked to, and I talked to a ton of people - school officials and administrators and fans from the teams that played - in their mind it was fantastic," said Nanninga. "I didn't get one bit of feedback that was contrary to that."

Dubuque Wahlert defeated Crestwood and Xavier topped Mount Vernon in the Class 3A substate games to earn a trip to the state tournament, where Wahlert won its second straight title and Xavier finished third.

Iowa City West defeated Washington and Kennedy topped Linn-Mar in the Class 4A substate games to punch their tickets to Des Moines.

Nanninga said Mike Silva, the assistant executive director for the U.S. Cellular Center, has been saving this year's dates for the substate tournaments. "He's got us penciled in," said Nanninga.

Nanninga spoke with Silva this past Tuesday to make sure everything was in order, but they've been talking about a return visit to downtown Cedar Rapids ever since last year's event was a big success.

"I said, 'Hey, keep our dates open because we want to come back,'" Nanninga remarked. "Sometimes that's easier said than done, but they were really good about holding dates. I'm glad it worked out."

The U.S. Cellular Center also will host an NAIA men's and women's basketball tournament on Feb. 26-28, which means there will be five straight days of basketball at the arena. The Association of Independent Institutions (AII) tournaments will be held downtown as a qualifying event for the NAIA national tournaments.

Nanninga said the IHSAA plans to hold other substate tournaments in major arenas around the state, with the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls and the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City as likely sites. He said a key element in booking major arenas for high school events is to make sure there will be doubleheaders each night instead of just a single contest.

"In some of those cases, they're not really cracked up about opening it up for one game. And I understand that," he said. "That's part of the challenge."

The preliminary rounds of the Class 3A and 4A tournaments will be held during the week of Feb. 22 before they move to the U.S. Cellular Center for the substate championship games.

The IHSAA plans to announce the team assignments for the substate tournaments Monday morning, but the pairings will not be announced for several more weeks.