Ivy League Men's Basketball Tournament

Elite academics are what usually comes to mind when the average American thinks of the Ivy League. That is what these universities are mainly known for. Sixteen of our 45 Presidents went to an Ivy League school. One, Woodrow Wilson, was the former President of New Jersey's Princeton University before becoming President of the United States. President Trump went to the University of Pennsylvania.

There are eight member schools. They include Brown University of Providence, Rhode Island; New York City's Columbia University; Upstate New York's Cornell University; New Hampshire's Dartmouth College; Harvard University in Boston; Philly's University of Pennsylvania; Princeton University in New Jersey; and Yale University in Connecticut.

Basketball Tradition

The Ivy League may not be an athletics powerhouse like the ACC, Big East, or Big 10 schools. However, it has a nice little tradition. Princeton is known throughout the college basketball world for the Princeton Offense. This consists of a lot of back door passes and crafty plays. They almost upset mighty Georgetown, losing by 1 point in 1989.

Ivy League teams usually get a lower seed on selection Sunday. However, some have pulled off upsets like Cornell's dramatic run to the Sweet 16 in 2010 as a 12 seed.

Conference Tournament

Historically, the team with the best league record won the league's bid to the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament. They decided to introduce a conference tournament at Penn's Palestra in 2017. However, only the top 4 out of 8 get a chance to compete. The top seed plays the four seed and the second seed plays the third seed. The two winners play each other for a chance to go to the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship as Ivy League Champions.

The tournament is typically hosted by one of the top teams in mid-March. Games are broadcast on ESPNU, with the championship game also on ESPNU. Many bracketologists track Ivy League performance closely.

Most online sportsbooks will have these games listed for you to bet on when you click on college basketball.