PHILADELPHIA — Zach Spiker struck the podium Saturday afternoon with a joyous fist, the leader of Philly’s outsider program afforded a chance for his team to take a swing and take down ranked Villanova.
Fran Dunphy laid out the narrative so cleanly that he could’ve justifiably taken a percentage of everyone in the media room’s fees for the day – of his overtime battles against two former employers, Temple and Penn. As notable to the La Salle coach and doyen of Big 5 hoops, though, was the receiving line of former Temple pupils with warm hugs of congratulation after Khalil Brantley’s OT buzzer-beater.
Billy Lange called it a “God-appointed moment,” his new employer lifting a banner to the rafters of a building where he once had an office, powered by players raised on the Philly courts orbiting the central sun of the Wells Fargo Center.
Uniformly, the reviews of the first Big 5 Classic at the Wells Fargo Center came back glowing. With three quality games – one a buzzer-beating overtime classic – and 15,215 spectators, the Classic lived up to its credo to breathe life back into Philadelphia’s unique if ossified basketball institution. It provided a blueprint for what Big 5 basketball could be again – perhaps, what it must be to survive.
The more impressive feat than trumpeting a day of exciting basketball will be Philadelphia’s stakeholders following through on that praise and building off its excitement.
For no one is ever outspokenly opposed to the Big 5. It’s a lovely if increasingly quaint idea, in a world of megaconferences and NIL. Its recent struggles are less due to outward aversion than benign neglect, the city series landing low on the list of university priorities. (To wit, ruminate on the tautology of Jay Wright as Big 5 defender and Villanova’s perception as its cartoon villain.) This wouldn’t be the first time college athletics showed an ostensibly noble mission to be a façade.
The first Classic had all the non-Palestra pageantry: The student sections, the streamers (minus some premature execution from St. Joe’s), the rollouts (“Villanova: 6th place in the Big 5” on tap for next year?). It honored history with a Hall of Fame class inducted during the nightcap. And it drew a more than respectable crowd to South Philly.
“I didn’t know what the crowd was going to be, but I knew whatever it was – and our fans were great – it felt like a Sixers game during the pregame warmup,” Lange said after his team’s 74-65 win over Temple in the title game. “But I talked to them about, there will be electricity in the building. There’s a lot of excitement.”
Never again, with this format, will you get the quandary that Brantley, a junior guard from New York, found himself in the first time he played St. Joe’s.
“My freshman year, we’re at St. Joe’s and I’m like, why is everyone so hyped about this game?” he said. “They were like, ‘This is our rival.’ But after being in it for a couple of years and growing with the culture, you start to enjoy these moments, live for these moments.”
Or the one Penn coach Steve Donahue, a Big 5 watcher since sixth grade, recalled, of trying to broaden a coach’s granular focus to connect what two games in December, then one in January, then one in February might mean for the Big 5 standings amid the do-or-die Ivy League.
Saturday brought an upset in the opener, Drexel holding tight on the final possession to repel Villanova, 57-55, for its first Big 5 win and first win over a ranked opponent since 2010. (Luke House, an Archbishop Carroll All-Delco and only Delco player in the tripleheader, had 11 big points for the Dragons.) That result brought the deliciously Philly statistical oddity that Villanova, which entered ranked No. 18, is 4-0 against Power 5 teams but 0-3 against Big 5 foes.
The middle game was the most enthralling. Penn and La Salle, the latter off a triple-overtime loss to Temple Wednesday, went at it for 45 minutes. It looked like Clark Slajchert won it with a layup with four seconds left in OT. But Brantley had other ideas, banking home a 38-footer from the logo.
Most striking was the on-court aspect. The tripleheader featured nine Catholic League alums in important roles. Add in four District 1 players, Villanova’s Jordan Longino out of the Inter-Ac and two guys from Camden, and you have the feel of a tournament that reflects the city.
“It definitely means a lot,” Drexel point guard and Archbishop Wood grad Justin Moore said. “You see those guys in the summertime and you grow up playing other kids from the city on the other teams, so it means a lot to go out and compete against them.”
“Some of those guys over there, I’ve been playing them my whole life,” Temple forward and West Catholic grad Zion Stanford said. “We’ve had some battles growing up, so it’s pretty regular at this point. It makes me proud to see all my friends because they’re not only my teammates growing up, but they’re my friends that I talk to every day. I’m proud of them just like they’re proud of me, and it’s always fun for our parents to see us play on bigger stages as we get older.”
Saturday’s Classic didn’t solve the Big 5’s central tension, one of tradition and modernity, in matters larger than Palestra plumbing. It didn’t fix the fact that 2023’s was the first NCAA tournament since 1977 without a Big 5 school.
But it took some issues head-on. The addition of Drexel was praised by coaches (Lange called it, “inevitable”), and the Dragons upending the city’s most successful program is empirical evidence it belongs. Lange addressed the tension around the city’s “blueblood program,” understanding that the Big 5’s survival requires both including and accommodating Villanova’s national draw. While there was nothing but reverence for the Palestra – directly and euphemistically as its “tradition” – Wells Fargo offers undeniable upgrades. Only Temple’s Adam Fisher was lukewarm in his assessment, the first-year coach deferring to his administration about the event’s future.
The Big 5 has long been criticized for not getting with the times. Saturday’s Classic was a decisive step in that direction.
“The world’s changed, college athletics has changed,” Donahue said. “I thought it was important that we made this kind of move. I think it’s in a really good spot for something that’s really important for our city. It’s an experience they’ll never forget.”
The last word goes to Dunphy.
“There’s no city that does this other than us,” he said. “We should really be praiseful of our culture in Philly.”
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com.
Source: Berkshire mont