ESPN's Eamonn Brennan opposes Ivy postseason tourney

The headline of Eamonn Brennan's post on Tuesday says it all: "Say it with me: No Ivy League tourney!"

The ESPN college hoops writer agrees with Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky's statement from earlier this week opposing a postseason Ivy League tournament.

Brennan acknowledges that the chances the tournament happens are slim, and he argues that the Ivy League should be a model for more mid-major conferences rather than the other way around:

Look, we all love when a team like Western Kentucky, which entered the 2012 NCAA tournament with a losing record and an interim head coach, rises from the ashes in the postseason, puts together a magnificent week of basketball, and earns an unlikely trip to the NCAA tournament. It's always a heartwarming story. But is it any more heartwarming than a mid-major league -- where the chances for an at-large bid are almost always slim to none -- ensures its NCAA tournament representative is the team that was best for the entire measure of the season? Doesn't that team deserve it more? Shouldn't a trip to the tournament (if not the tournament itself, obviously) be less about the randomness of one-time elimination games and more about the content of a mid-major team's entire season?

I think so. Simply put, it's about sample size. By the end of the season, the Ivy League ensures that its most deserving team enters the NCAA tournament. There are no (OK, few) lucky runs and no (OK, few) unjustly absent frontrunners. It is, I would argue, as it should be.

There's also the matter of making the regular season more entertaining and impactful. When every game matters -- and this is probably true of mid-major leagues more than the big boys, particularly because so many at-large bids come from high-major leagues, but the general concept works all the same -- there is less incentive for casual fans to ignore the games in January and February, to merely tune in during the final week before the NCAA tournament. From January to March, the Ivy League's format makes every game count.

Don't change, Ivy League. Don't ever change. Your lack of tournament makes you unique; it gives you cachet. But I would agree with Bilsky: You also happen to have it right.

If anything, other conferences, especially mid-majors, should follow the Ivy's lead -- not the other way around.