Again, without Power and Roberts, Penn wasn’t close to full strength. Frankly, if they could beat Yale without their top scorer, it’s tough to argue that Yale was noticeably better having won the league by 1 game with 3 losses. If they were undefeated, there would be a much stronger argument here. I think any Ivy team was going to be beaten by this Illinois team, however.
Indeed–let’s see Yale play Illinois without Celiscar and with Townsend in sick bay. Result wouldn’t be much different at all.
Even as a disappointed Yalie, I still favor the Ivy tournament. It makes the 14 game regular season more meaningful for more teams and is a fun experience for the teams that play there. But no doubt, we risk not sending the best team to the NCAA tournament, as happened this year. And btw, part of the point for those opposed to Ivy Madness is that the regular season winner would typically get a higher seed than an upset winner like Penn. Yale wouldn’t have been playing Illinois in the first round.
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Important point. Not a certainty, but very likely.
I still support an Ivy tournament. I just think the #1/top seeds must have a clear advantage (homecourt and/or fewer games to play).
Having a rotating host was always a ludicrous idea. Top seed should host, end of story. Also, 11am games on a Saturday are stupid.
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All games on Saturday are stupid unless they’re after havdala.
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As a Cornell fan I do appreciate that the current system gives us something of a chance to make the NCAAs. That said, a ladder bracket is absolutely better for the league, you want your best team in the tournament. Penn won this year and got their shit kicked in, and don’t forget we were damn close to having below .500 Brown two years ago. Do you really want the worse teams representing your league come March?
Illinois’ relatively easy bouncing of last year’s national runner up, Houston, 2 miles from the Houston campus continues to make Penn’s blowout loss not that terrible–more a really bad matchup against a great team. Hard to understand how Illinois was a 3 seed. But they are loaded.
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They did not play well down the stretch, one that included 4 separate Big 10 losses in OT. For a while it was them and the Wolverines fighting for the Big Ten top spot, but while Michigan finished strong, Illinois did not.
Penn’s 2018 Tournament loss was to Kansas (in Wichita) who ended up as a final four team. Illinois has to beat 9 seed Iowa (again) to repeat that.
To my knowledge, Penn has lost in the NCAA tournament to a team that ended up in the Final Four 7 times–that has to be an Ivy record.. These losses occurred in 1971 (Villanova), 1972 (North Carolina), 1973 (Providence), 1978 (Duke), 1979 (Michigan State), 1982 (North Carolina), and 2018 (Kansas). If Illinois makes it, that would be the 8th time.
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They didn’t actually end up losing to Nova.**
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You forgot Memphis (then called Memphis State) in ‘85. And we actually had the lead in this one in the second half and got Keith Lee in foul trouble.
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Actually, the loss counts. Villanova’s victory was “vacated”
OK, that’s 8. So Princeton fans, beat that for “good” losses.
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Why would we want to?
that is right
yale was likely a 12. whole different probability skew
this is why i was so disappointed in losing to penn on top of retention qs which are a reality sadly
but hey next year it might give yale a chance
As was Memphis State’s.
I just realized we missed another one.
Florida in 1994.
By the way, it is still theoretically possible for Iowa to win the national championship by beating 4 straight Big Ten opponents in its last 4 NCAA games.