The NCAA season has reached it first round of the postseason. With the regular season now in the books, we are in the heart of the conference tournaments. As of today, Thursday, March 9th, all but one conference tournament will be underway. That one remaining tournament will be the Ivy League. Several tickets have already have been punched, with more to come each and every day leading up to Selection Sunday.
The final tournaments that will be tipping off for the first time will be the Ivy League Conference Tournament, as mentioned above. Here at INSC we have you covered, with predictions down below. This tourney will conclude on Saturday, March 11th.
You can check out the seedings and a link to the bracket below.
[Kenny]
(1) Princeton
(2) Harvard
(3) Yale
(4) Penn
Finally the Ivy League has a conference tournament! But because they are the Ivy League, they still need to be different. For starters, there are only four teams in the mix here. So we will get a total of three games. On top of that, it doesn’t start until the day before Selection Sunday. Way to stay different Ivy League!
Starting off our three-game slate, Princeton takes on Penn. This one sets up pretty well for the one-seed. They not only play better from beyond the arc, offensively and defensively, but they also are a much better team when it comes to shooting free throws. Bottomline, there is nothing here to indicate Penn can pull off this upset. So give me the favorites, 74-65.
Game two of three will have Harvard and Yale battling it out. There is a joke in here somewhere, but I have nothing at the moment. This one is fairly evenly matched. Yale does shoot the ball a hair better, in addition to committing fewer fouls per game. So for those two reasons, they are going to be my pick in this one. Give me Yale 71-70.
So our final in the first Ivy League conference tournament will have Princeton and Yale fighting for their spot in the NCAA Tournament. We once again have a pretty even matchup. Each team has their fair share of advantages over their opponent in this game, so I would say this sets up to be a back and forth affair. But when things wrap up, I do believe the one seed is the better team. Give me Princeton 71-67.
So what do you think? Who will emerge with a NCAA Tournament bid? Will it be an upset, or will the top seed claim their auto bid? Tell us in the comments!