Get schooled.
The first 14-Game Tournament piece this season comes from a statistical analysis of confence tourney results in one-bid conferences by Michael James. In looking at his numbers, one thing absolutely stood out: the benefit to the league in avoiding a 15 or 16 seed. As it turns out, an upset of the champion in a conference tournament would almost always relegate the league representative to a dreaded matchup with a 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Last month marked the beginning of the most unique playoff systems in all of Division I college basketball. One that challenges its competitors with postseason pressure from tip to buzzer from mid January to early March. The 14-Game Tournament. Yet the question persists: Should the Ivies follow the rest of Division I and institute a year-end conference tournament to determine which team will collect the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament?
The Brown Daily Herald is reporting that Brown tri-captain Luke Ruscoe will miss at least two weeks after doctors discovered a fracture in his injured ankle last week. The senior originally hurt the ankle in the first half of the UMES game on December 20, but retunred for the start of Ivy play in mid-January. Ruscoe played 33 minutes in the double-overtime win over Dartmouth on January 27, however he did not play the following night against Harvard. He was in uniform this weekend, but was limping noticeably in pre-game warmups and didn’t see action.
Something bizarre happened back in 2001-02 and 2002-03 — and it wasn’t Ugonna Onyekwe becoming only the fourth two-time Ivy league Player of the Year. Rather, in each of the two seasons, home teams were 28-28 in league play. 2003-04 wasn’t much better (30-26), but the last two seasons have seen the home teams re-establish dominance, going a combined 52-26.
Yale’s sweep at the Ps this weekend dropped the Bulldogs to 0-3 on the season in Ivy road games. As we mentioned in Inside the Ivy, Yale is now 24-7 in Ivy homes games the past five seasons, and 12-19 away from home in that span. Is James Jones using a special traveling squad of JV players? Does the crowd at The Church give the Bulldogs special powers?