And yet here is Princeton asking who needs a conference tournament. Easy for them to say.

Maybe the Tigers and their blowhards should open their eyes to what is going on around the rest of college basketball. If they did, they would find that when it comes to postseason tourneys, the Ivy League is by far the exception and not the rule.

The Big East, Big West and Big South all have one. So do the MAC, the SWAC, and the WAC. The Atlantic-10 has had one for 25 years, the Big Ten adopted one three years ago, and as of next season, the PAC-10 will finally boast of one as well.

This means that, as of 2002, the Ivy League will be the only conference in Division I college basketball that receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but does not have a conference tourney to decide who gets it.

In other words, 30 of the 31 major athletic conferences in America have decided they need a conference tournament.

But not the Ivy League. Nope. Princeton says we don't need one. Penn would probably say the same. With the Killer P's exerting such a stranglehold on the rest of the league every year, it's no wonder they don't see a need for a conference tournament. They have the most to lose from one.

Well, too bad. The Ivy's automatic bid to the tournament is no one's birthright. And this league needs some shaking up.

The argument most frequently presented in defense of the status quo is

that a tournament would undermine the importance of the regular season. Granted, it is probably true that no athletic conference in the country has a more important regular season than the Ivy League.

But what good is a regular season anyway when it produces no surprises, no tournament success, and no long-term development? In this sense, the Ivy League probably has the most meaninglessly "meaningful" regular season in college basketball.