Growing up, Fran Dunphy spent his elementary school days taking a train ride to the Palestra to watch Philadelphia’s college basketball teams compete for the city title.
Temple, Penn, La Salle, Villanova and Saint Joseph’s played games against each other each year at the historic venue. The tradition started in 1955 and spread like wildfire across the city, becoming the premier collegiate basketball tournament in Philadelphia.
Each year the five schools competed for bragging rights amongst themselves. Legends like Mark Macon and Jameer Nelson dazzled the crowds and fans spent the winter nights watching players fight to prove they were the best Philadelphia had to offer. The yearly games were something Dunphy, Temple’s former head coach and current head coach at La Salle University, looked forward to.
“It was just awesome,” Dunphy said. “Then the games were all on Wednesday night, Friday night or on Saturday night. You spent a number of days during the course of the winter at the Palestra watching games. It was just absolutely awesome. I still think it’s part of the fabric of Philadelphia sports.”
However, throughout the years the fabric of the tradition wore thin. It hit its lowest point during a Big 5 doubleheader at the Palestra in 2022 when the arena was half-filled. What once sent students and Philadelphians flocking to the venue had become a shell of itself.
Hoping to spark new excitement, a new format was created.
The change, which was incorporated last year and added Drexel University to the Big 5 and split the six teams into two pods, breathed new life into a tradition that was on its last legs. Fans and students from each school traveled to the Wells Fargo Center for the first-ever championship games. More than 15,000 people witnessed the festivities, which ended in St. Joe’s knocking off Temple in the first-place game. The day shed light on how the Big 5 could get back to relevance.
“I think the new format is really rejuvenating the Big 5,” said Penn head coach Steve Donahue. “The way I see it is when I walk around town and I talk to people, they’re talking about the day at the Wells Fargo Center. The Big 5 has remained the same, but the rest of college basketball has changed so dramatically.”
One of the main reasons the rivalry remained so intense for a prolonged period of time is because most of the players on Big 5 rosters also competed against each other before they got to college. They all grew up in the city and knew each other from high school games and local pickup contests.
“Just the rivalry, the competitiveness of it was amazing,” said former Temple guard Dionte Christmas. “When I got to Temple, it kind of just trickled down to my class. When you looked across the board, you had each team in the city with Philly guys on it.”
Fewer players going to local colleges had seemingly changed the level of competitiveness prior to the inception of the new Big 5 format. However, that’s started to change as local players return home in the transfer portal. While players may initially leave the city they grew up in to begin their college careers, some of them come back seeking greener pastures from their original school.
Former Villanova and Maryland guard Hakim Hart started his career in College Park before the Roman Catholic alumnus transferred back to Villanova in 2023. The same happened with Philadelphia native Wooga Poplar, who played three seasons at Miami before heading back north to play for the Wildcats in 2024.
Guard Lynn Greer III transferred twice. After starting his career at Dayton, he left and spent two seasons at St. Joe’s where he was a part of last season’s Big 5 championship team. In the offseason, he dipped his toe in the portal again and transferred to Temple where his father became the second leading scorer in school history.
There has been a resurgence of sorts and the hope is that local kids can view local schools as an avenue to accomplish their goals, Dunphy said.
“I hope that’s the effect,” Dunphy said. “I don’t know if that is definitely going to happen, but I hope that some young folks are saying ‘You know what, I can get, whatever I need by staying at one of the local schools and playing here.’”
Christmas remembered his time on North Broad Street watching players like Nelson, who anchored a powerhouse at St. Joe’s, or Rasul Butler, a star at La Salle just up the road. By the time Christmas got to play at Temple in the mid-2000s, those players had already reached the NBA, but he still had rivals of his own.
He spent his playing days under Dunphy with Philly natives like Mardy Collins and Mark Tyndale, all of whom grew up watching people like Nelson and Temple legend Lynn Greer II. Christmas finished his Temple tenure 12-12 against fellow Big Five teams, including a win against St. Joe’s in the Atlantic-10 championship in 2008.
Christmas played against the likes of NBA star Kyle Lowry when he was at Villanova and other players that he faced off against in high school.
“I think it made them more competitive,” Christmas said. “We grew up playing against each other and battling every day. When we get to college, I want to beat you. We cool off the court and we talk and we work out off the court. But all that friend stuff ended when we got between the lines.”
The new format makes every game feel like it means more — just like it used to back in the Big 5’s prime. Last season, Temple played La Salle in a triple-overtime thriller to send the Owls to the championship at the Wells Fargo Center. At the same time, St. Joe’s bested Penn to punch their ticket to the first-place game as well.
When Temple beat La Salle in their pod game last year, the vibe felt different than a Big 5 win in years past, said Temple head coach Adam Fisher. The crowd stayed at The Liacouras Center for all three overtimes and they traveled to South Philadelphia a week later to see a champion crowned at Wells Fargo.
“We knew the winner of that game in the triple overtime gets to play for a championship,” Fisher said. “You did feel that going into it. Any chance you have to play for a championship is really special.”
The Big 5 Classic has moved the needle in the right direction after a period of limbo. The second installment takes place on Dec. 7 and Temple will take on Villanova in the third-place game at 4:30 p.m. La Salle will battle St. Joe’s for the city crown.
“I thought it was very well received last year,” Dunphy said. “It’s not like everybody’s staying for three full games. There are probably some junkies who stayed all day long, but that’s what I would have been as a kid. These days, that’s not how people watch games, but I thought it was a really good atmosphere last year and I’m hoping we can build on it for years to come. I just don’t want to see the Big Five die.”
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