Climbing up the Ivy

The Ivy League, from the perspective of someone who also follows European soccer, is a lot like the Scottish Premier League. Two teams dominate it (Celtic FC and Rangers FC in our Penn and Princeton roles), and you know that one of them is going to win that league's title every year.

But what if...one of them doesn't win? Wouldn't that just tear a hole in the fabric in both universes?

Well, I'm here to tell you no, and this is part of the reason why the Ivy League needs to have a conference tournament.

Among college basketball super-nuts, I feel like the consensus with the Ivy is something along the lines of, "Well, who cares if they have a conference tournament, Penn or Princeton will win it anyway." And justly so. This year, however, I am paying far more attention than would usually be the case, and that is because of Yale.

The school that brought us the skull and bones is leading the Ivy League with a 6-1 record and is right up there with Penn in overall efficiency in the Ivy. And hopefully, if this stays true, and Yale does the nearly unthinkable, it will push this conference into a tournament.

I know exactly what the Ivy brass would tell me, "The Ivy League does not award athletic scholarships and therefore would not deem it appropriate to have a postseason moneymaking venture." (Or something more lawyerspeak than that.)

Two words for all that crap: Patriot. League.

They only started allowing a limited amount of scholarships a couple years ago and even had a tourney when they were exclusively non-scholarship athletes. And they do it by playing all games at campus sites.

And that is why I will, for the at least the next month, be rooting for the Bulldogs to break this mold in hopes of them joining all of us less-intelligent folk in the greatness, fun, tension and heartbreak that is Championship Week. And the double-layered underdog thing is cool too.