Ivy League announces sites for basketball tournaments through 2025; Palestra not among them
After two years at the Palestra, the conference tournament is on the move.
After holding the first two Ivy League men’s and women’s basketball tournaments at the Palestra, the conference has announced a plan to rotate future events among other campuses.
The league announced last May that the 2019 tournament will be held at Yale on March 16 and 17. Wednesday, it released dates through 2025.
Harvard will host in 2020, Princeton in 2021, Brown in 2022, Cornell in 2023, Dartmouth in 2024, and Columbia in 2025.
By the end of the rotation, each of the eight universities will have hosted at least once.
“Each Ivy League campus presents its own aura and distinctive traits,” Robin Harris, executive director of the Ivy League, said in a release. “With this rotation, we look forward to sharing the atmosphere and energy of our basketball tournaments with each of our campus communities and giving all of our devoted fanbases an opportunity to experience Ivy Madness in their own venue.”
By rotating to each of the eight campuses, the Ivy League can avoid giving one school a home-court advantage. In the first two years, both the Penn men’s team (2018) and women’s team (2017) won the conference tournament to earn berths in the NCAA Tournament.
But attendance will suffer. The Palestra seats 8,722, and last year, the two title games combined for an attendance of 5,564. Yale’s John L. Lee Ampitheater seats just 2,800 (1,300 of it in pullout bleachers). Lavietes Pavilion at Harvard seats 2,195 after renovations completed last year.
A combination of permanent and temporary seats allows Princeton’s Jadwin Gymnasium to seat nearly 7,000, making it the second-largest on-campus Ivy League venue. The Pizzitola Sports Center at Brown seats 2,800; Cornell’s Newman Arena seats 4,470; Leede Arena at Dartmouth holds 2,100; and Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium seats 2,700.
Penn was picked during the preseason to finish second in its conference, but is now fighting to earn the fourth and final spot in the postseason tournament with four games to play. The Quakers will travel to Harvard, the league’s No. 2 team, on Friday and 2-8 Dartmouth on Saturday, and close the season with Yale, which leads all teams with an 8-2 conference record, and 5-5 Brown next weekend.