Stuart Suss
Masters Student
Posts: 526
Loc: Chester County, Pennsylva...
Reg: 11-21-04
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04-17-12 05:37 PM - Post#128445
Hello Bucknell fans,
If any of you lurk around the Ivy League board, you will have read that the Ivy League is contemplating a post-season tournament. The initial proposal is to mimic the recently created lacrosse tournament in which the top four teams gather at the home court of the regular season champion to play a doubleheader the first night and a championship game the second night. There is considerable debate among Ivy League fans regarding a tournament.
I invite those of you who have experienced the various versions of the Patriot League tournament to come to our board and address the following questions.
1. Did Bucknell “deserve” the NCAA bid as the regular season champion, or did Lehigh “deserve” the bid because Lehigh came to Bucknell and won the championship game? Which way do fans consider the “fair” way to determine an NCAA bid?
2. Is your answer to the first question different because Lehigh defeated Duke and “proved” to be the better team or would your answer be different had Lehigh lost to Duke by 20 points while Bucknell was winning an NIT road game at Arizona?
3. In 2005 and 2006, when Bucknell was winning first round NCAA games, was Bucknell the regular season champion both years or in one of those years did Bucknell take away the NCAA bid from a “more deserving” regular season champion?
4. Does the existence of a post-season tournament devalue the regular season? Are regular season matchups less intense because there is less at stake? Do those fans that travel to regular season road games do so less frequently than if there were no post-season tournament?
5. Should a tournament involve all of the schools traveling to a neutral site for both basketball games and a social event? How many years ago did the Patriot League give up the neutral site tournament and move to the current version involving individual home games at the home court of the higher seed? Do fans prefer the current format to the neutral site format?
6. Does anybody know if the neutral site tournament ran a profit or a deficit?
7. In the Lehigh at Bucknell championship game, what percentage of the seats was allocated to Lehigh as the visiting team? Is that a different percentage than would be the case for a regular season game between Lehigh and Bucknell?
8. This year the Patriot League gave up the Friday, 4:30 PM championship game on the ESPN networks in favor of a weeknight game on the CBS College Sports network in competition with other championship week games on the ESPN networks. Does anybody know if the ratings were higher for prime time on CBS College Sports than they were for Friday afternoon on the ESPN networks?
9. Is there any sentiment in favor of abandoning the post-season tournament to give greater value to the regular season and to the regular season championship, or is the automatic NIT bid sufficient consolation to the regular season champion?
I invite you to post your replies on the Ivy League board, not on this board. I would like the Ivy posters to be able to benefit from reading about Bucknell and the Patriot League’s experience with a post-season tournament. The discussion may be found at the general Ivy League sub-topic on the Ivy League Board under the thread entitled: “Katz says Ivy League discussing conference tournament.”
Thank you.
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mattie g
Senior
Posts: 390
Reg: 03-21-06
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04-17-12 07:30 PM - Post#128450
In response to Stuart Suss
I don't like postseason tournaments/playoffs for leagues (and conferences) for which the regular season can easily determine who the best team was. If everyone plays everyone else an equal number of times, there's no reason to go through the tournament process - except for allowing the poor teams a chance to redeem themselves...and money.
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SteelCity
Sophomore
Posts: 189
Reg: 02-04-06
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Should the Ivy League have a post-season tournament?
04-17-12 11:02 PM - Post#128461
In response to mattie g
I think there are years like this year though, where Bucknell and Lehigh were pretty even. It's nice to have one more game between those two top teams to get a more definitive answer on who should be representing the league. Obviously it didn't work out well for us this year, but 2 of the league's 3 NCAA tournament wins have come from teams that didn't win the regular season.
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Bison54
Masters Student
Posts: 683
Reg: 11-18-09
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Re: Should the Ivy League have a post-season tournament?
04-19-12 06:40 AM - Post#128493
In response to Stuart Suss
4. Does the existence of a post-season tournament devalue the regular season? Are regular season matchups less intense because there is less at stake? Do those fans that travel to regular season road games do so less frequently than if there were no post-season tournament?
Purely selfish, but I like the opportunity to potentially have three more games to see my team play in person. That's better than going to a remote site that is much more difficult to get to.
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