"Life's not fair," you remark, "and your league's just taking up space."

"If you want to talk about historical perspective, the Ivy League has done more than its share to represent college basketball," Roby continues. "There are a lot of conferences out there that have never put a team in the Final Four."

Mutterings

You mutter something like, "I'm sure the Trans America Athletic Conference is a couple of years away from putting a team in the Final Four," but your confidence is ebbing.

Roby's 6-ft., 4-in. frame is growing taller now.

"Ten years ago, we had a team in the Final Four [Penn]," Harvard's fourth-year coach says, "No scholarships and a team in the Final Four. How can that be? No scholarships, go to Carolina and beat Carolina in Carolina. That's what the tournament is all about, and that's why we deserve to always have a shot at the tournament."

"You're living in the past," you say.

Roby continues, "I don't think people understand what that team in '79 did. You're talking about nonscholarship, academic guys, studentathletes with a full course load."

"[People] should be allowed to dream," Roby says, not noticing your presence anymore, "and nothing--no matter how much money, or how much whining people do because they want eight teams from their conference to go--should take that away from us."

You twinge. Roby notices you again, but you almost wish he wouldn't.

"Nobody gets on probation. All our guys graduate. National Collegiate Athletic Association," he says, pointing to your NCAA pin. "There's a word in there called collegiate. What's that mean? It means that you make decisions not because of money and not because of outside pressure. You make a decision because it's the right thing to do, and the Ivy League playing in the NCAA tournament is the right thing to do."

Roby saunters off in disgust.

You know you're right and Roby's wrong. You're sure of it. But in a strange, twisted way, you hope that somehow Princeton does the impossible Friday night.