This is the Ivy League.
This is the league where players don't get their acceptance letters accompanied by Ferraris and duffel bags filled with cash.
This is the league -- the only league in America -- where there are no athletics scholarships. (The Patriot League was adopted on that principle, but some of the schools have begun to hand out scholarships to gain an edge).
This is the Ivy League -- pure, crisp, and innocent basketball. There many not be too many glass-shattering dunks, but you can be sure no Ivy Leaguer is leaving school early to declare himself eligible for the draft. You can be just as sure most players don their caps and gowns come May of their senior year.
This is the Ivy League, where the last Tuesday of the regular season will always be an epic battle between the two monsters of the conference.
Last night, it was Penn, Princeton, the Palestra and 8,722 delirious fans enjoying the culmination of a great regular season of Ivy basketball. And yes, in the Ivy League the regular season actually means something.
See, the Ancient Eight is the last conference in the nation that has not succumbed to the pressure of adopting a postseason tournament to decide who receives the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
What do you say we keep it that way?
Penn coach Fran Dunphy is one of seven Ivy League coaches who feel the league should follow the lead of every conference in America and establish a tournament.
"I feel for the kids on the other teams who don't get much of an opportunity to play," Dunphy said after his team defeated Princeton, 64-48, to clinch a third of the league title and set up the first three-way playoff in conference history. "Because that's what it's all about -- what a hell of a life it is to go play college basketball in an atmosphere like this."
Dunphy is absolutely right -- I can't think of too many things that are better than four years of college basketball. And that's exactly why every player on every team should value each game they play. Make it your goal to win the regular season title, not some tournament at the end of the season.
Some might argue that a conference tourney is beneficial for those teams who stumble in the beginning of the season. A tournament is a perfect way for those teams to redeem themselves and prove they are, in fact, the best the league has to offer.
The Quakers were in that position five games into their Ancient Eight campaign. But staring up at the league with an alarming 2-3 record, the Quakers did not have the option of giving up on the regular season and waiting for a tournament.
Penn's only option was to win the rest of its games and pray for a little help along the way.
Nine consecutive Penn wins later, the Ivy League has found itself with an unexpected tournament -- the way it should be. The three best teams in the league -- Yale, Penn and Princeton -- will play in a mini-tournament to determine which Ancient Eight school will receive the automatic bid. Isn't that the best way?
Isn't this the way that preserves the sanctity of the regular season? Does Cornell, with two conference wins, a 5-22 overall record and an RPI hovering around 300 really deserve the chance to make it into the dance? And if so, wouldn't it hurt the Ivy League to have a team like Cornell lose in the play-in game when a team like Penn would be sitting at home when it had a legitimate chance to bust up some brackets?
Yes, every conference in America besides the Ivy League has a tournament. That doesn't mean every conference is right.
All across America, low seeds are getting hot at the right time and top seeds are falling. Teams like Tennessee Tech, Rider and Butler all proved that they are the best teams in their respective conferences during the regular season, yet all of them may be watching other teams take their places in the NCAAs. To me, that's a damn shame.
The beauty of college basketball is that all 324 Division I teams have the chance to be one of 64 select teams to be invited to the NCAA tournament at the outset of every season. The beauty of college basketball is not that every team has a chance to win three straight at the end of the season to get that bid.
The Ivy League is basketball at its purest. It is the only league that doesn't give athletic scholarships and it is the only league where 14 games -- not three -- determine the NCAA representative. And that's the way it should be.
When I tune into CBS next week, I will be happy to see that the true champion of the Ivy League -- whether it be Penn, Princeton or Yale -- will be representing the Ancient Eight.
And I know that team will make us all proud.
