Word: postseason
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...regularly scheduled meeting, the directors listened to the presentation of a subcommittee of Ivy administrators formed to investigate the feasibility of a postseason league tournament, which would determine who received the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA tournament...
...clearly the first time that the movement [for a postseason tournament] has come from the directors as opposed to the grassroots efforts, the coaches. So I thought it was a positive step,” said Harvard coach Frank Sullivan, who chaired a coaches committee formed 12 years ago to investigate the issue, a movement ultimately shot down by opposition from Penn and Princeton. Of the 31 Division I basketball conferences, the Ivy League is the only one without a postseason tournament, and thus the only one to determine its winner based upon the regular season...
...general, it appears that the vast majority of league and team personnel are in favor of a postseason tournament. The sole exception might be the Penn officials—Quakers athletic director Steve Bilsky was quoted in last Friday’s New York Times as stating that the regular season is the fairest determinant of who gets to go to the dance. Penn, of course, has no reason to support a tournament, considering that their talent level is higher than the rest of the league’s, even Princeton’s. The Tigers, who have struggled...
...worth asking, however, whether an Ivy postseason tournament would be a good thing. The purest, most fair way of determining the league winner is to see who plays the best throughout the season, as Bilski correctly points out. If Penn or Princeton wins the league, only to be knocked out in a first round upset in the conference tournament, it is highly unlikely that their Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) score would be strong enough to get them an at-large berth in the NCAAs...
...pros of the postseason tournament, however, outweigh the cons for one simple reason: the current state of affairs in the Ivy League is one of extreme stagnation. A postseason tournament, even if it only included the top four teams, would give teams at the bottom of the standings an incentive to fight for that crucial last playoff spot, rather than to play out the string in meaningless games. As it stands now, every year is the same, with Princeton or Penn coming out on top, and every year a multitude of pointless games are played down the stretch between...