Athletic directors in the Ivy League are meeting to discuss the possibility of a postseason tournament. This is a terrible idea. Might as well make the results of the league season null. One-bid leagues should want to send their best team to the NCAA Tournament. The best team is the one that demonstrates consistent mastery against its opponents (e.g. the LEAGUE champion), not one that rides the hot hand of chance for three games, gets a 16 seed, and loses by 30 to Florida. The problem, however, boils down to money, money, money - a conference tournament generates revenue for its member schools, and that's hard to ignore. Unlike the BCS, where a postseason tournament would help determine the best team among football teams that have not necessarily played each other, the Ivy League is a competition where each team has played every other team twice and the best team is well-defined. If we have to have a tournament, and I get the feeling the lure of money may be too strong to resist, hopefully Ivy ADs will have the sense to model it after the West Coast Conference, where the league winner has to win fewer games than the other competing teams.
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word. but it’s “fewer games.”