Either Penn or Princeton has won the Ivy League each of the past 10 seasons
The last time that an Ivy League school not named Pennsylvania or Princeton represented the league in the NCAA Tournament, was in 2009 when Dartmouth won the regular season championship, and received the automatic bid.
It has been a decade of dominance for Penn and Princeton, as even when the league moved to a conference tournament in 2017, both the Quakers and the Tigers have continued to set the standard in the league.
Penn and Princeton competing for another championship this year might be as close to a sure thing as you could imagine this season, the rest of the league is right on their heels. Joining Penn and Princeton in each of the three Ivy Madness tournaments has been Harvard. A historic program led by Kathy Delaney-Smith, the Crimson have been a part of the league’s final weekend since its inception.
While the three schools at the top have been a constant, the fourth spot in that tournament has been a revolving door. That phrase, revolving door, doesn’t always constitute a positive, but in this case, it helps speak to the growing depth of the league. Brown, Yale, and Cornell, have all made it to Ivy Madness, while only Dartmouth and Columbia have been left on the outside looking in.
Dartmouth finished in a tie for the 4th spot last year, but lost out to Cornell on a tiebreaker. Columbia showed slight improvement from the previous two seasons, and head coach Megan Griffith seems to have the Lions trending in the right direction.
Here’s a look at how I believe this year will shake out in the Ivy League.