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Username Post: Down to the Wire        (Topic#25992)
SRP 
Postdoc
Posts: 4894

Reg: 02-04-06
02-08-22 12:03 AM - Post#335787    
    In response to Naismith

Of course the coaches wanted an IL tournament; it's natural to want more chances at a lottery ticket in a zero-sum profession where injecting randomness actually is a form of insurance with respect to fluctuations in recruiting and development. Of course players say they like it; they are not residual claimants on the long-term viability of the league, and many of them also would prefer a chance to get lucky over having to win the league.

I'm pretty sure, though, that none of that, for good or ill, had any bearing on the schools' decision to set up the folly of a tournament. They were looking for an image boost and maybe two bids.

In any case, alleged polling of coaches and players has not improved recruiting, quality of play, effort during the regular season, getting two bids, improving the league's image, etc. We have a dumb strategy of partial imitation of rivals rather than a clear differentiation that enhances the brand of IL hoops. Getting rid of the back-to-back travel partner schedule is of a piece with this--that policy actually made sense given the academic positioning of the league.

In-season discussion and coverage has shifted from focus on the best teams to the most mediocre. If any team really got good in a season to the extent that it dominated the IL, its motive to try hard in all regular season games has been vaporized, as unlike a Gonzaga, say, its in-conference performance wouldn't do much for tournament seeding, while it would still get cut if it were upset in the folly at the end.

There is no redeeming this blunder via arena locations or any other form of giving aphrodisiacs to a dead man.

 
ToothlessTiger 
Senior
Posts: 332

Age: 76
Reg: 03-28-15
02-08-22 11:03 AM - Post#335816    
    In response to SRP

What I take from this post: coaches were wrong, players were wrong, AD's were wrong, Presidents were wrong. Schedule revision, wrong. Tournament, horrible.

 
bradley 
PhD Student
Posts: 1842

Age: 74
Reg: 01-15-16
02-08-22 02:10 PM - Post#335844    
    In response to SRP

Well said! The branding has gone from one of a kind to a compromised homogenized version that has done nothing to increase the profile of the IL.

The regular season is only meaningful as to getting into the top 4 out of 8. If any IL coach had the choice of playing an injured player for the final game of the season for the IL regular season championship versus sitting them in order to get them at full health for IvyMadness, I think that we know the answer.

The irony is that with the performance of Carla's teams in 2019-20 and probably this year, a two bid NCAAW Tournament is indeed possible if someone else wins IvyMadness. I suspect that Carla will have the team play at 100% no matter what game, regular season or IvyMadness as that is her style.

On the men's side, if Amaker had built a program upon the great recruiting class of Towns/Aiken/Lewis and continued on with subsequent classes, there would be a far better argument on behalf of IvyMadness as the other 7 teams would have the opportunity to go to the Big Dance but they would have to knock off a superior team during ivyMadness.

I questioned Berube as to playing such a difficult non-conference schedule but she obviously realized that it is better to go for a very tough non-conference schedule to see if you can get a NCAAW bid in case you lose at IvyMadness. I suspect that she will continue on with this approach but you better win a number of those games. It certainly helps Berube or an Amaker type men's coach to have the IL improve their overall non-conference performance as the women did this year for seeding purposes.


 
PennFan10 
Postdoc
Posts: 3580

Reg: 02-15-15
02-08-22 04:37 PM - Post#335858    
    In response to bradley

First this:
  • bradley Said:
If any IL coach had the choice of playing an injured player for the final game of the season for the IL regular season championship versus sitting them in order to get them at full health for IvyMadness, I think that we know the answer.




Then this:

  • bradley Said:

I suspect that Carla will have the team play at 100% no matter what game, regular season or IvyMadness as that is her style.




And all in the same post. Hmmmm. Not sure I understand.



 
LyleGold 
PhD Student
Posts: 1712

Reg: 11-22-04
02-08-22 04:54 PM - Post#335860    
    In response to PennFan10

Just in case, they’re proactively conceding the men’s title while going all out for the women’s. Only the ILT matters, but every game matters no matter what. What’s the matter with that?

 
Naismith 
Sophomore
Posts: 149

Loc: RI
Reg: 11-11-18
02-08-22 05:26 PM - Post#335864    
    In response to LyleGold

The most galling graphic of all this came in the first year's tournament. The Executive director walked out and handed Princeton a trophy the size of the Stanley Cup.

 
PennFan10 
Postdoc
Posts: 3580

Reg: 02-15-15
02-08-22 05:36 PM - Post#335867    
    In response to LyleGold

There are also a lot of other things that have happened that affect the league far more than the existence of an ILT

Recruiting: One of the most damaging decisions in IL history is the cancelling of the 2021 season making us the only D1 conference that didn't play. That set recruiting back years. Recruits want to play meaningful games in March, which is a draw for the ILT. For Ivy players, they just want to play games period, which is no longer a given for our league.

Graduates: Our transfer student list of players that are now playing for other big schools is long and distinguished. If we had figured out a way to keep those players in the league, we would likely be a top 10 league. Instead, we went from 11th a few years ago to 18th now.

Results: The 2 issues above have had the impact of draining our overall talent level as a league. Our out of conference results have been largely non competitive in accordance with our decline in talent. Our path to 2 bids (distant as it may seem) centers around getting top 100 talent to come to our schools by selling the 40 year decision (which is increasingly appealing generally) so we can compete with top 25 teams. If our league has enough talent to win our non conference games, we will get more attention from media and recruits and then we would draw even more talent. That is the cycle we were on pre-covid and that's why the ILT made sense to me.

The cancelling of our season, the inability to create an opportunity for our grad transfers, and our tepid OOC results have all set us back for the foreseeable future.



 
SRP 
Postdoc
Posts: 4894

Reg: 02-04-06
02-08-22 10:11 PM - Post#335885    
    In response to ToothlessTiger

Yes, TT, collective folly--it's a thing. The tournament has been a failure on all the terms for which it was advanced, except for the fig leaf of "unsystematic surveys of non-incentive-aligned players and coaches like it." Of course, the season cancellation last year made everything worse, but the obvious train wreck that the tournament has become for the conference in terms of profile, likely NCAA seeding, etc. can't be wished away.

 
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