Philly's Little Secret- The Big 5

The Big 5 matchups are one of my favorite college basketball traditions, and Brandon Lilly gives them their due:

The Big 5 started in 1955 when the athletic directors at La Salle, Penn, St. Joseph’s, Temple, and Villanova decided they would all play the vast majority of home games at the Palestra on Penn’s campus in doubleheader formats. Out of this arrangement, the city series was born, an annual round-robin tournament between the five schools. Several major cities have multiple major programs, but none of them play each other with any regularity. Yet for all but an eight-year stretch in the '90s, the Big 5 schools have dutifully faced each other, playing for a largely mythic city championship and bragging rights at Sonny Hill League summer games.

Although all five teams harbor a healthy dislike for each other, these are largely bloodless rivalries. Unlike Duke and Carolina, or Alabama and Auburn, Big 5 fans traditionally have not woken up every morning hating any one team in particular. (St. Joe’s fans would no doubt cite Villanova as their biggest rival, but this feeling is largely unrequited, as Nova fans are more likely to rattle off four or five Big East schools as their chief enemies before getting to the Hawks.) Rather, the five are more like a family; Penn of the Ivy League is the smart older brother, St. Joseph’s the loud and obnoxious younger sister, and La Salle the slightly senile grandfather prattling on about how great things were back in the day. (Drexel is the unloved stepchild from a previous marriage, or perhaps the family pet. Sorry, Drexel.) Temple and Villanova are mom and dad — the twin pillars of the city’s college hoops establishment. But all five schools have had moments in the sun.
La Salle has largely become an afterthought in the city series, but it hasn’t always been like this for the Explorers. In 1954, the year before the Big 5 started, the Explorers won the national championship behind Tom Gola. The team returned to the finals the next year, only to fall to Bill Russell and San Francisco. The school continued to field successful teams throughout the '70s and '80s, but fell into mediocrity in the '90s. An attempt to land Kobe Bryant by hiring his father as an assistant coach failed, and it has been nearly 20 years since the Explorers were invited to the Big Dance.
Perhaps no school takes the Big 5 as seriously as St. Joseph’s. The Hawks hate Penn because they are Ivy League snobs. They hate Temple because they have state school money, a history of success, and the Owls' former coach once sent in a guy to commit hard fouls and ended up breaking one of their guy’s arms. They mainly hate La Salle because they just have a lot of hatred and no one is spared. But the team they really hate is Villanova, because St. Joe’s and Villanova are practically the same school, except Villanova is better at everything. St. Joe’s went to the Final Four in 1961 and came within one missed shot of repeating the trick in 2004, but Jameer Nelson’s shot hit the front rim and the dream died. The Hawks have only made the tournament once since then.

It seems appropriate that I root for St. Joe's, considering as much of my sports rooting interest is aimed at rooting against teams I hate as it is rooting for teams I like.  Actually, it is probably more rooting against teams I hate.  I was as disheartened as most Philly fans when Nelson and St. Joe's came up short against Oklahoma State in 2004.  Even worse, Xavier missed the opportunity to knock off Duke in the same round.  Two A-10 teams in the Final Four would have been awesome, especially with one knocking off much hated Duke.