Drexel Joining The Big 5?

You may not have heard yet, but the Big 5 round robin may be over.

Dana O’Neill of The Athletic reported yesterday “The Philly Six has found a solution to keep the Big 5 tradition alive. After months of conversations and searching for solutions to reinvent the deep-rooted city series, administrators and coaches have agreed to institute a new format, starting with the 2023-2024 season, a person involved in the planning told The Athletic.

Here’s what you need to know:

Under the new format, the six schools — the traditional Big 5 teams of La Salle, Penn, Temple, Saint Joseph’s and Villanova, plus Drexel — will be split into two three-team pods.

The pod teams will play each other in November, with the winners matching up based on their record in a tripleheader (a designated fifth place, third place and championship game, if you will) at the Wells Fargo Center on the first Saturday in December.”

Temple’s twitter account announced no decision has been finalized and conversations are still ongoing.

Let’s just say I’m not a fan of this “Philly Six” but let me share my thoughts on the positives and negatives.

Positives:

1. At least they are trying something new. A Temple Villanova championship at the Wells Fargo Center may be cool.

Negatives:

1. Drexel doesn’t deserve to be in anything close to the Big 5. All time head to head Drexel is 3-22 vs Temple, 7-20 vs La Salle, 9-33 vs St. Joe’s, 1-11 vs Villanova and 10-10 vs Penn. Also, since 1996-97 the Dragons have been in only one NCAA Tournament.
2. The round robin is gone which means the annual matchups vs Big 5 rivals are in jeopardy.
3. The so called triple header is to be played on the first Saturday of December. Same day as college football conference championships. Only Temple has a football team but playing this tripleheader on the same day as Power 5 matchups will be tough to gain television viewership.
4. The Palestra is a great place to watch a college basketball game, especially a Big 5 matchup. My wife may complain the bleacher seats aren’t comfortable, but nothing compares to the Cathedral of College Basketball.
5. This doesn’t fix the Big 5, and honestly, I don’t think it will gain more interest.

How do you fix the Big 5?

La Salle, Penn, St. Joe’s, Temple, and Villanova simply are not good at basketball at the moment. If the teams are failing to meet expectations, attendance numbers will go down. I thought before the season started Temple would be dancing but with losses to Wagner and UMES; it’s unlikely at the moment.

I don’t think its broken, the athletic directors at the Philly schools need to promote more interest like free transportation for students to the Palestra and doubleheaders on a weekend, not weekday. If they did better marketing maybe more people would care.