Elite academics is 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 U in NJ, and Yale in Connecticut.
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 and lost 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.
Historically the team with the best league record won the league's bid to the Men's NCAA Basketball tournament. They decided to do 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 2019 Ivy League Champions.
The 2019 tournament will be hosted by Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale is currently having a top 4 season and many bracketologists predict they will win the Ivy League. The home court edge during the conference tournament will certainly play to their advantage.
This year's tournament will be March 16th and 17th. The games will be on ESPNU and the championship game will be on ESPNU. Most online sportsbooks will have these games listed for you to bet on when you click on college basketball.
