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Ivy League strikes down proposal for postseason conference tournament

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Mike Miller

The Ivy League has released a statement, announcing that it will remain with its current system for deciding an automatic bid to the men’s and women’s NCAA tournament and will not pursue proposals for a postseason conference tournament.

“After careful consideration of these proposals, the athletics directors decided that our current method of determining the Ivy League Champion and our automatic bid recipient to the NCAA Championship is the best model moving forward,” Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris said in the release.

As it stands, teams in the conference play a 14-game, double round-robin style, where each team plays every other twice, once at home and once on the road.

The proposal that was struck down Thursday had been put forward by Ivy League coaches last month and would have placed the top four regular-season finishers in a two-round playoff, with the winner receiving the automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.

Harvard won the regular season title this past season and advanced to the NCAA tournament’s Round of 64, where the Crimson lost to Vanderbilt.

The Ivy League renewed its contract with the NBC Sports Network this week, an agreement that will show 10 football, 10 men’s basketball, and four lacrosse games per year.

“We are proud to again partner with the Ivy League, a conference whose institutions and student-athletes consistently comport themselves with great distinction while attracting an audience with a favorable demographic for our growing sports network,” President of Programming for NBC Sports and the NBC Sports Network Jon Miller said in a statement.

Daniel Martin is a writer and editor at JohnnyJungle.com, covering St. John’s. You can find him on Twitter:@DanielJMartin_