Eiwa / Ivys

[Antitroll2828]

Ivys announced  they will have an Ivy League tournament at end of next season to determine ncaa bids meaning all 6 teams are leaving the EIWA , I dont know if this a good or bad thing 

 

https://intermatwrestle.com/articles.html/college/eiwa/ivy-league-to-hold-postseason-tournament-in-2025-r98762/

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

Ivy leagues are going to have their own tournament which will mean they are competing amongst themselves for NCAA bids. 
 

The EIWA is generally small schools without the name recognition. They will now compete amongst themselves for NCAA bids, taking out the ivies frees up spots for them to get more bids and get on the map more.

 

I think this is great, as it results in more d1 college conference tournaments and spreads the wealth to schools that normally get spots blocked by Cornell, Princeton, etc.

 

I see this as a positive and actually don’t see a downside. 

[gimpeltf]

The Ivies, like all conferences, will get what they earn. They will get AQs and if someone that falls outside of that number at the qualifier they will compete against everyone across the country just like they did to get the AQs.

The only exceptions are where the conferences don't merit any AQs at a weight and then the champ gets one regardless. IIRC, the Ivies only had one weight last year without an AQ (184). And again IIRC the rest of the EIWA had 3 without AQs. Not sure if they got a qual after the event at those weights. So based on last year there might be 4 fewer earned AQs.

[Quaker118]

I for one am sad to see the demise of the EIWA. I competed 3 times in the tournament and qualified for the NCAA twice. I am on the EIWA Hall of Fame committee. It is the oldest conference in the country. Ivy athletic directors are gravitating towards Ivy League tournaments in every sport and wrestling I believe, got caught up in this new philosophy. 

[D3 for LU]

25 minutes ago, Quaker118 said:

I for one am sad to see the demise of the EIWA. I competed 3 times in the tournament and qualified for the NCAA twice. I am on the EIWA Hall of Fame committee. It is the oldest conference in the country. Ivy athletic directors are gravitating towards Ivy League tournaments in every sport and wrestling I believe, got caught up in this new philosophy. 

I, too, am sadden by this. Now the EIWA conference is oldest in name only, imho. The Originals that started this wrestling conference was Columbia, Penn, Princeton, & Yale (correct me if I'm wrong here.) Ivy's flying the coop here... not a good look indeed. 

D3

Edited December 19, 2023 by D3 for LU

[Ashebuckeye]

Maybe it will encourage addition of wrestling from remaining Ivies? Dartmouth and Yale, time to bring back wrestling. 

[Jim L]

1 hour ago, Antitroll2828 said:

Ivys announced  they will have an Ivy League tournament at end of next season to determine ncaa bids meaning all 6 teams are leaving the EIWA , I dont know if this a good or bad thing 

 

https://intermatwrestle.com/articles.html/college/eiwa/ivy-league-to-hold-postseason-tournament-in-2025-r98762/

Seems like a bad thing for the EIWA, the Ivies and wrestling.  How NQs are going to come out of a conference with 6 teams with only one being a nationally prominent school. Doesn't hurt the borderline NQ who now likely has to win the Ivy tournament to qualify? And likely need to beat a highly ranked Cornell guy to do so.

[BigRedFan]

3 minutes ago, Jim L said:

Seems like a bad thing for the EIWA, the Ivies and wrestling.  How NQs are going to come out of a conference with 6 teams with only one being a nationally prominent school. Doesn't hurt the borderline NQ who now likely has to win the Ivy tournament to qualify? And likely need to beat a highly ranked Cornell guy to do so.

If we were to look at Intermat's current rankings, we perhaps see which of the Ivy League and the EIWA is better positioned for AQs (and thus NQs):
125:  Ivy 4, (new) EIWA 2

133:  3, 4

141:  3, 2

149:  2, 2

157:  2, 1

165:  3, 5

174:  3, 1

184:  4, 4

197:  4, 2

285:  1, 5

Ivy has half the schools, and the same number of ranked guys (and before you say, well, Cornell, they have nobody ranked at 149 and 174).

[Jim L]

34 minutes ago, Quaker118 said:

I for one am sad to see the demise of the EIWA. I competed 3 times in the tournament and qualified for the NCAA twice. I am on the EIWA Hall of Fame committee. It is the oldest conference in the country. Ivy athletic directors are gravitating towards Ivy League tournaments in every sport and wrestling I believe, got caught up in this new philosophy. 

I assume they would not do this in ice hockey as the ECAC league is one of the best leagues. Pulling out  would hurt both the conference and Ivy hockey.

There are only 6 Ivy hockey teams and like wrestling it does not make sense to me to separate from their existing leagues

[SetonHallPirate]

1 hour ago, gimpeltf said:

The Ivies, like all conferences, will get what they earn. They will get AQs and if someone that falls outside of that number at the qualifier they will compete against everyone across the country just like they did to get the AQs.

The only exceptions are where the conferences don't merit any AQs at a weight and then the champ gets one regardless. IIRC, the Ivies only had one weight last year without an AQ (184). And again IIRC the rest of the EIWA had 3 without AQs. Not sure if they got a qual after the event at those weights. So based on last year there might be 4 fewer earned AQs.

The rest of the EIWA only had one weight without an allocated spot last year (149).

[11986]

I wonder if the EIWA might look to replace the departing Ivy schools with new members. Not sure what schools, if any, make sense though. Not like former member Rutgers is leaving B1G or anything. 

[ugarles]

This sucks, man.

[D3 for LU]

IMHO... Ivies may regret this move as time goes on.

D3

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

I struggle to understand why this is bad for the EIWA? Are we saying they will not get AQ’s? 

[ugarles]

11 minutes ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

I struggle to understand why this is bad for the EIWA? Are we saying they will not get AQ’s? 

Ivy and EIWA will both get AQs. The brand of EIWA is badly hurt with the Ivy defection and, as an Ivy guy, I will miss the fun of the bigger touranment even with the weak bottom of the conference. Even when Cornell was clearly the deepest team (or one of two deep teams, not trying to pick a fight with Lehigh right now, especially after their tournament run), it was GOOD to have to try to beat guys from schools that had only one or two guys in the top-tier of the conference like (and I'm throwing out names at random here because they popped into my head), O'Malley, Greiss and baby Gwiz. When EWL was left with only small schools, it collapsed into the MAC. Time will tell if EIWA suffers the same fate.

Edited December 19, 2023 by ugarles

[Jason Bryant]

I assume they would not do this in ice hockey as the ECAC league is one of the best leagues. Pulling out  would hurt both the conference and Ivy hockey.
There are only 6 Ivy hockey teams and like wrestling it does not make sense to me to separate from their existing leagues

I think it’ll happen eventually. ECAC can backfill schools like RIT from Atlantic Hockey. This season, Quinnipiac is the only team from the ECAC in the Top 20 in the pairwise at the moment. Cornell is 21st.

I’d rate the ECAC fourth, behind the NCHC, Hockey East and Big Ten.

Men’s and women’s hockey are the only two sports left with enough membership to have an AQ but don’t do it.

[Voice of the Quakers]

This has been a long time coming. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, particularly after the COVID year when a lot of non-Ivies scarfed up bids earned by teams not wrestling that season. 

Money, of course, is the answer to all of life's questions. I would think one of the ESPN channels would air the finals of net year's tournament live. That won't suck.

Still, as other posters have noted, the Ivy League would likely get 3 AQs per weight class. It can only help recruiting when you can tell as kid that if you earn the starting nod you'll have a 50 percent chance of making the tournament in a 6 team league.

 

[Jim L]

1 hour ago, Jason Bryant said:

I think it’ll happen eventually. ECAC can backfill schools like RIT from Atlantic Hockey. This season, Quinnipiac is the only team from the ECAC in the Top 20 in the pairwise at the moment. Cornell is 21st.

I’d rate the ECAC fourth, behind the NCHC, Hockey East and Big Ten.

Men’s and women’s hockey are the only two sports left with enough membership to have an AQ but don’t do it.

Dont follow college hockey much anymore. ECAC hockey was the dominant league in the east when I was a kid (maybe the only league as well?). This was before Hockey East and it was on TV every week.

[SetonHallPirate]

3 hours ago, 11986 said:

I wonder if the EIWA might look to replace the departing Ivy schools with new members. Not sure what schools, if any, make sense though. Not like former member Rutgers is leaving B1G or anything. 

Oooh…I can think of a school in the EIWA’s footprint that needs a conference!

[jdalu75]

52 minutes ago, SetonHallPirate said:

Oooh…I can think of a school in the EIWA’s footprint that needs a conference!

Programs that make the most sense geographically are Rider, George Mason, and Morgan State.

[SetonHallPirate]

10 minutes ago, jdalu75 said:

Programs that make the most sense geographically are Rider, George Mason, and Morgan State.

Was specifically referring to Morgan State, who’s only access to the NCAA Championships this season is through the at-large process.

[gimpeltf]

5 hours ago, SetonHallPirate said:

The rest of the EIWA only had one weight without an allocated spot last year (149).

I'd have to go back to where I did it but I think when I did it I also separated Colonial.

At the time it looked like both might happen.

Edited December 19, 2023 by gimpeltf

[Dark Energy]

Would love to hear more of the Ivy League decision back story.

Pure speculation here … could see Ivy League wanting to wall them and their athletes off a bit more from the $$$ arms race.  They don’t give athletic scholarships and seemingly do stand more behind the idea that these are students first than most schools.  Primary goal is academics.  

[Jim L]

17 minutes ago, Dark Energy said:

Would love to hear more of the Ivy League decision back story.

Pure speculation here … could see Ivy League wanting to wall them and their athletes off a bit more from the $$$ arms race.  They don’t give athletic scholarships and seemingly do stand more behind the idea that these are students first than most schools.  Primary goal is academics.  

Honestly, I think that primarily goal is academics is mostly lip service. Outside of FB and BB, the Ivies tend do compete well with best in the nation (similar to wrestling). Most of the high level athletes would not stand a chance at Ivy league admission without their athletic accomplishments. They may be better much better than average students compared the collegiate population as whole, but for most athletics is more important than academics

They do have a few official rules like no redshirting and no grad students competing and a few specific FB rules -  freshman cant play varsity (not sure if this rule is still in effect) and the FB team cant go to the FCS playoffs.

[scribers]

Not having to look at Lehigh wrestle makes this appealing