PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The Big 5 is no more.<\/p>\n
Well, at least not the incarnation most fans of the famed Philly basketball series remember from its heyday. <\/p>\n
Villanova will leave the Big 5 at the end of the 2026-2027 season and the series will continue with five teams starting next season in a round-robin format. The Big 5 Classic tripleheader also will end after this season’s Dec. 5 event at the Xfinity Mobile Arena, the home of the 76ers.<\/p>\n
Founding members Penn, La Salle, Temple and Saint Joseph’s will remain, as will Drexel, which was added ahead of the 2023 season making it a six team series.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe resumption of a consistent round-robin format, featuring both home and away contests, will sustain traditional rivalries while providing valuable scheduling stability in an increasingly complex Division I environment,\u201d the five remaining schools said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n
The Big 5 \u2014 the name was coined by Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer Herb Good \u2014 was officially formed in 1954, and the schools started round-robin play for \u201cCity Series\u201d bragging rights in 1955. The first game was 68 years ago when Saint Joseph\u2019s beat Villanova 83-70 on Dec. 14, 1955, in front of 2,636 fans at the Palestra.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn recent years, the evolving NCAA landscape has prompted institutions to evaluate how their athletics programs align with broader institutional priorities. Following thoughtful discussions and consideration of the interests and goals of all involved, the decision was made to move forward with the Men\u2019s Philadelphia Big 5 championship format without Villanova\u2019s participation,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The Big 5 is no more. Well, at least not the incarnation most fans of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,1976,4044,398,400,401,99,9815],"class_list":["post-890936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}