Charles Euchner files a nice take on what new scholarship rules could mean for Harvard's NCAA tourney chances:
Harvard, Yale and Princeton perennially finish among the top five in rankings of universities for their academic offerings and research. Could they, one day, also compete for the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament?
Ivy League colleges have not been serious competitors in major sports
since the signing of the Ivy Group Agreement in 1945, which banned the
use of athletic scholarships. Harvard and Yale dominated college football
in the late 19th and early 20th century but de-emphasized sports in the
aftermath of a series of controversies over gridiron violence.
(Harvard's invention of the "flying wedge," in which a mob of defensive
players targets a single opposing player, led to the creation of the
National Collegiate Athletic Association.)
But now
two Harvard initiatives—a dramatic restructuring of tuition assistance
and aggressive recruitment of the nation's best high-school basketball
players—could spur Harvard and other Ivy League schools to produce
basketball teams worthy of March Madness. Basketball is likely to see
the greatest change from these new rules, since one good player can
significantly improve the fortunes of the team; see, for instance, the
career of Bill Bradley, who led Princeton to the Final Four in 1965.
Because of the volume of elite athletes needed, the initiatives are
less likely to impact sports such as football or baseball.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
