The Ivy League's first-ever basketball tournament at The Palestra was everything the conference "could have hoped for" in year one, and there "should be no doubt about where the tournament is held in all future years," according to John Feinstein of the WASHINGTON POST. The conference is "committed to playing" a men's and women's basketball postseason tournament for at least three more years, but is "only locked in to the Palestra for this season." For years, the Ivy League "resisted calls to play a tournament if only because the eight school presidents are always trying to prove they're different and above the fray of money-chasing big-time sports." Meanwhile, Princeton during its semifinal against Penn on Saturday afternoon "had almost as many fans in the building as Penn did" and there was "no getting around the fact that the game was played in West Philadelphia in the cathedral of college basketball" (WASHINGTON POST, 3/12). Steven Rome of the student newspaper YALE DAILY NEWS writes there was a "reason the Ivy League handed Penn and the Palestra the first tournament." It is the "premier basketball venue in the Ivy League and among the best in the country." The arena "breathes basketball, and its charm made the tournament complete." Yet the "thorny issue of home-court advantage makes the Palestra problematic, and this seemed to be on everyone’s mind over the weekend" (YALE DAILY NEWS, 3/13).
