Last March, for the first time in its more-than-100-year history, the Ivy League held a conference postseason tournament in men's and women's basketball. The move was both applauded and criticized. The Ivy League gave up its uniqueness by adapting the league playoff format for its automatic bid, something no other conference could claim.

Lucky for the league, seeding held in men's and women's hoops this past winter. For the men, top-seeded Princeton, which far outpaced the rest of the conference and went 14-0 in Ivy League play in 2016-17, held serve and earned the automatic bid after winning two games in the four-team field.

The powers-that-be in the Ivy have deemed it a success, and so on Thursday the conference announced that 2018 would again bring an Ivy League bracket to be played at Philadelphia's historic venue, the Palestra. The famed barn is home to Penn, which of course is also in the Ivy League and that could present reason for further debate down the road. The Ivy League is opting to go with a legendary venue over the home-court-advantage model to higher seeds in an effort to maximize exposure at the potential expense of not sending its best representative.

Just because it dodged this bullet in 2017 doesn't mean that will happen again in 2018.

League athletic directors made the call on this. Next year's tournament will be held on March 10 and 11, the 11th being Selection Sunday.

The women's bracket also broke right in the winter, as No. 1-seeded Penn won the auto bid. The conference is committed to this concept for the foreseeable future, but it's still a debated topic. There are many Ivy League loyalists who prefer the "14-game tournament" style and giving the auto bid in the most objectively fair way: to the regular-season champion. If a one-game playoff is required, so be it, and in those years it's even more special.

But the league isn't going back to the old way any time soon. Plans are to hold a tournament in 2019 in men's and women's hoops as well, but the Palestra has not been confirmed as a site "as the League continues to explore various locations," per the conference's press release.

The question the Ivy League needs to really be asking itself right now is if having a two-day, four-team tournament in the 36 hours before the bracket is released truly brings more attention and publicity to the league. In years past, the Ivy League got a blast of pub for getting the first official NCAA Tournament bid because league play would end and the champ would officially make the tournament before just about any other team. This year, that wasn't the case. Princeton's inclusion came and went, and within hours, the bracket was out.

It's fair for the Ivy League to keep going with the tournament format for a couple more years, but eventually it will need to deduce if it's making enough money and earning enough publicity to warrant keeping the change at the cost of being like every other league in college basketball. That's still to be determined.