A Postseason For Everybody

Because of the overwhelming popularity of the NCAA men's basketball tournament and, to a slightly lesser degree, the "Championship Week" bonanza on ESPN, the Ivy League has often been the center of attention in the conversation about postseasons.

As you are probably well aware, most Ivy League champions, including both men's and women's basketball, are determined in the regular season. You play 14 games, and if you win more than anybody else, you are the champion.

What it may lack in excitement, it more than makes up for in fairness. But sports is entertainment, and entertainment should be exciting, right? But it should also be fair, shouldn't it?

Baseball and softball both use four-team divisions and let the two division winners battle in a best-of-three for the title. Starting next season, both men's and women's lacrosse leagues will send its top four teams to an Ivy League tournament for the league title. Both seem to be happy compromises between fair and exciting.

And then there are sports that determine champions in a one-meet extravaganza, when everybody seemingly has an even chance. Both swimming & diving and track & field are among those groups, but realistically, rarely does more than two or three teams have a true chance at a title. With so many events, you can typically get a sense of which teams are deep enough to truly contend. The best men's swimmer in the Ivy League this year was Yale's Alex Righi; he won all three conference titles he entered and carried the Bulldogs singlehandedly to 21st place at the NCAA Championships.

And yet, Yale was never on Princeton's radar during the championship meet. The Tigers defeated Harvard for the 2009 title; since 1993, the men's swimming and diving title has gone to either Princeton or Harvard. The best teams usually win the swimming or track titles, although upsets have happened.

All that brings us to Sunday in Worcester, Mass. Lake Quinsigamond will serve as host to the 2009 EARC men's rowing championships, where both the Princeton heavyweight and lightweight crews will compete for the Ivy League championships. The two teams couldn't be going into the weekend on more different paths: the heavyweights completed one of their toughest regular seasons ever, losing their last five races and only beating Penn during the regular season; the lightweights beat everybody on their schedule by at least three seconds.

And yet, they are both in the exact same position heading into the weekend. They both need to qualify for the finals during a morning heat and win the grand final to take the title. And since it's only one event, there is no reliance on overall team depth. Perform badly, you're going to lose. Simple.

Both head coaches, Curtis Jordan (heavyweight) and Greg Hughes (lightweight), understand the significance of the weekend. Three years ago, Jordan took the best team in the east to Sprints, knowing that anything less than gold would be considered a failure. The pressure was on, and to the credit of that 2006 power, Princeton won gold. Now, his team goes with a bit of an S.O.S. mantra -- Save Our Season. As the 11th-seeded crew, simply making the grand final would seem to be an extraordinary accomplishment.

But what happens if they do? What happens if Princeton, which still has significant talent, finally puts 2000 meters together and pulls off an upset in its first heat? All of the sudden, the Tigers will row a race with one thing it has lacked all season: confidence. Furthermore, it would be a boat absolutely bereft of expectations with everything to gain.

To a degree, the opposite is true for the lightweights. Princeton has been atop the rankings all season and anything short of victory would be disappointing, although not shocking. The men's lightweight field is so close that Hughes thinks six teams have a real shot at winning; based on heat draws, it is more than conceivable that those six (Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Navy and Georgetown) will line up next to each other at 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

To his credit, Hughes doesn't wish his team got any extra advantage from the regular season. He has always praised the excitement of Sprints, and his was the team that emerged from a mix to make a trip to the medal stand in his second season.

So do you prefer the needle to point closer to fair or to exciting? Either way, Princeton would benefit this weekend. If it was just based on regular season success, the heavyweights wouldn't go to sleep Saturday night with realistic dreams of an Ivy League title. The lightweights sure would, though, and maybe the road would be a little easier.

Instead, all slates are wiped clean. On Sunday, in what is easily one of the most exciting days in collegiate rowing, two Ivy League champions will be decided on the same lake, in the same weather, by the same standards. Two trips, 2,000 meters: fastest team wins.

Truth be told, there is something very fair about that.