Karl-Anthony Towns and Giannis Antetokounmpo will be duking it out in Hilton Coliseum this October.

The Minnesota Timberwolves and Iowa State Cyclones announced on Tuesday that the Timberwolves will play the Milwaukee Bucks in an NBA preseason game on Sunday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. in Hilton Coliseum.

The Timberwolves beat the Cyclones to the punch on breaking the news, putting out a press release roughly 10 minutes before a press conference with Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard was scheduled to begin.

The presser was a joint conference with Timberwolves executives Ted Johnson and John Thomas and Iowa Wolves President of Business Operations Ryan Grant.

In the presser, Pollard said that the work to get the game scheduled began as soon as Grant was installed in his position with the Wolves. Grant used to work in the Iowa State athletics department as a director of media sales and sponsorship sales.

“I’m gonna give Ryan a lot of credit,” Pollard said. “I’m really grateful that we were finally able to pull it together.

“Maybe we can create a little Hilton Magic for them.”

Johnson said that, despite not being with the Cyclones or the Timberwolves at the time, Fred Hoiberg was one of the people pushing for the Wolves to come to Ames. Johnson added that Hoiberg had pushed for the game often while with the Cyclones as well.

The game was characterized by Johnson as a “border battle” with the Bucks. 

“We’ve had a great fanbase in Iowa since the inception of the team in 1989,” Johnson said. “Border battles are something fun.”

Grant said that the Wolves have had “tremendous support” from traveling Cyclone fans to the team in Des Moines, and that it was a factor in the preseason game happening. 

“Ames and Hilton Coliseum have a lot of magic associated with it, and a great basketball history,” Grant said. “It made sense for us to come here.”

This will be the third NBA game to be played in Hilton, with the last contest coming in 1999, when Fred Hoiberg and the Chicago Bulls took on the Atlanta Hawks. 

In the 2017-18 NBA season, the Timberwolves made the Western Conference playoffs as an 8-seed with a record of 47-35, losing in five games to the top-seeded Houston Rockets.