For some Ivy League teams, the postseason means March Sadness
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Brown University women's basketball head coach Monique LeBlanc. Brown hosts the 2025 Ivy Madness conference tournament this weekend.
Giana Cappelli/Brown Athletics
The unlucky remainder of the Ivies will watch from home. Actually, Martin has to watch in his home gym, as does the Bears' women's coach, Monique LeBlanc. After losing by a whisker in the championship game a year ago and falling two wins short this winter, Martin is one of several coaches who would like to see every school in the Ancient Eight represented.
'All the teams should be involved,' Martin said. 'For us to do everything we do and talk about what's best for the student-athlete, obviously what's best is for our men to be playing.''
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But in a break with tradition, the league created Ivy Madness in 2017 with the hope of highlighting the talent and strength of the league's best teams on a national stage. The Ivies now join every other conference in the country with a postseason tournament and championship game that's televised nationally.
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Harvard University men's basketball head coach Tommy Amaker in January 2019.
Gerry Broome/Associated Press
'Everyone feels it's worked great and I've had teams in and out of Ivy Madness,' said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker. 'I know the coaches prefer everyone being included and giving our student-athletes an opportunity that most other players in the country enjoy. I've felt that way from the start.'
The Ivy League sponsors postseason tournaments in most of its other men's and women's sports, and almost always restricts the competition to the top four finishers in regular season play. That's done to emphasize the regular season, but for other reasons as well, some legitimate, others not so much.
'Ivy Madness provides an end-of-season capstone experience capturing the energy of March, while preserving the importance and relevance of the entire regular season by inviting the top four seeds,' Ivy League executive director Robin Harris said in a statement. 'This model — which is consistent across all sports — has led to five NCAA tournament wins in the last three seasons and has strengthened the league's at-large consideration in multiple years.'
Brown University men's basketball head coach Mike Martin.
Brown Athletics
The Ivy men's basketball champion has enjoyed recent success in the NCAAs.
Coaches and administrators point out that the eight school presidents and athletic directors ultimately decide the Ivies' postseason format. Some rationalize that the cost of running an eight-team tournament, plus travel and missed class time, enter the discussion. The flip side is that the potential branding and publicity opportunities – especially for men's basketball - far outweigh those considerations.
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'There are so many reasons for all eight to be involved. I'm grateful that there are at least four, but all eight teams should be playing,' said Brown's Martin. 'I would have said that last year when we were involved. That's not for me to decide, that's for the powers that be. As it is, in the current format you have to be really, really good to be playing (in the tournament).'
Kevin McNamara is a Rhode Island-based sports writer who spent more than 30 years covering Providence College basketball, the Celtics, the Patriots, the Red Sox and more. He writes at
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