KING JAMES BIBLE: Be Aware, Penn’s Easy Road to Big Dance Spells Disaster

Exactly one month from today, the greatest spectacle in all of college sports will tip off in San Diego, Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, and Greensboro.

While it’s technically true that the Big Dance gets underway with a contest in Dayton between the two worst teams to make the field, we’re going to cast that interjection aside since that game is kind of like the tree falling in the wilderness.

That leaves us one month, 28 days, from the opening tip of March Madness. And that leaves 26 days between this Saturday night and that first NCAA contest.

Why is this pedantic babble important?

Well, because by Saturday night, Penn should have the bow tacked onto the gift-wrapped NCAA bid that goes to the Ivy League’s regular season champion. The Quakers will still have some work to do to make it all tidy and mathematically official, but if they can sweep two teams that they combined to beat by 72 one month ago, they’ll be no worse than two games clear with five to play.

As Penn takes that long bus ride back from Ithaca Saturday night, it will have nearly four weeks and five meaningless games standing between it and a matchup with a No. 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. It’s most daunting remaining game (a road visit to Yale) takes place during the league’s closing weekend, meaning that the Quakers could probably wear those Ivy Champion caps and shirts they busted out the week before on the bus ride up to New Haven.

That’s five weeks of rust and atrophy that can keep a team from being sharp when a perfect performance is necessary.

Last season, Penn ripped apart any last semblances of an Ivy race by beating Cornell by 17 in Ithaca. Three weeks later, after sleepingwalking through its final four games, the Quakers fell victim to a 22-2 first half run by Boston College but played the Eagles even the rest of the way.

There are two ways to prepare for the NCAA tournament: play high level competition or face high pressure situations. When you can’t manage either, you’re a sitting duck going up against major conference teams that have been experiencing both for the previous three months.

By no means should Penn be penalized for its outstanding run through the league or for the fact that the league has been extremely weak over the past two seasons. But inherently the Quakers have been. When the last game that matters occurs a full month before the next, it’s hard to retain that edge no matter how hard you try.

The folks around the league that have experienced more than just one era of Ivy basketball will point to the early to mid 1990s, when winning the league by three to five games was the norm. From 1991 to 1998, the league champion had at least a three game margin over second place seven out of the eight years. And those teams combined for three NCAA tournament wins and never lost a tournament game by more than eight.

The league, however, was much stronger then and so were its champions. Four out of those eight seasons, the league champion was ranked in the AP poll, including twice in the top 20. Those teams had not only played with and beaten the bullies of college basketball—they were among them. There were no skills to hone or nerves to test. Those Penn and Princeton squads were ready for NCAA tournament play from day one.

The current Quakers teams are different. They’re good teams in a bad league. They aren’t seasoned and polished and primed for tournament play like those teams of the mid 1990s. They need more games like Tuesday night and more tests of will against scrappy opponents in situations with meaning. Yet, Tuesday night pretty much guaranteed that those won’t be necessary the rest of the way.

If you’ve noticed, the one thing I haven’t mentioned thus far is a conference tournament. Most will point to years like this as examples for why such a venture would be unjust. What if Penn were to win the league by five games, only to be knocked off in the conference tournament and have some unworthy squad steal the NCAA bid?

I look at this year as a perfect example of why it is necessary. The reasoning is simple.

Consider the following two scenarios.

The Quakers coast for the final five games of league play, get rusty, and fail to wake up until they trail a major conference team by 20 at the half.

The Quakers stay focused for the final five games of league play, keep themselves sharp, and play a major conference team close.

If the Ivies had a postseason tournament, a team following the first path would get upset in the conference tourney far more often than one following the second. And that might be enough incentive to cause runaway league champs to follow that other path.

By Saturday night, Penn will likely be fit that runaway profile, but the question remains, in the absence of a conference tournament, which path it will decide to take.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.