Carolyn Femovich has a kinda funny middle name

Here's a story from the UPenn student newspaper about the PL's slow introduction of scholarships and whether they've been a success.

Here's something to ponder: will the PL eventually supercede the Ivys athletically? You'd have to say they already have in football. And I'd argue that the PL was better last year than the Ivys.

Look at the standings: There were three Ivy league teams with winning records last year, Princeton (20-8), Penn (17-10) and Brown (14-13). Princeton was 7-7 outside of the league, Penn was 7-6, and Brown was 4-9.

The Patriot League has similar numbers: Lehigh, AU, and Lafayette were the only three teams with winning records. Lehigh was 10-7 OOC, AU was 8-9, and Lafayette was 9-5.

The conference RPI for the Patriot League was slightly higher than the Ivy League's.

Without Navy or Army, which have unique circumstances to deal with, the Patriot League is by far the superior league. Dartmouth, Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell, to but it nicely, sucked last year. Any team but the academies beat them easily. The PL was 13-6 against the Ivy league last year.

The real question, if the league as a whole is better, is when do teams like Lehigh, Holy Cross, or AU get to the level that Princeton is at where they routinely WIN games in the tournament and get the respect of a seed higher than 16? I'm convinced that no PL team will win an NCAA game with a 16/17 seed. The league as a whole is going to have to improve to the respect level that the Ivys have and get a 12 seed or so before there's a reasonable chance.

But don't hold your breath.


  @ 5:17 PM