What a move from the students of Hawk Hill Thursday night:

This right here is the type of shit that the Big 5 needs. Rivalries, hatred, streamers, roll outs, upsets, and more. Nova was a 12 point favorite last night at home and the Hawks came in and beat them by double digits.

For the Big 5 to work, it needs to be competitive year in and year out. It needs the fans to buy in. I love that the first thing these students immediately did after beating Nova for the first time in 11 years was going to Wright Way and flashing V’s down. They haven’t had a moment to celebrate against Nova since Halil Kanacevic flipped off the Cats student section:

That’s the Holy War. Great games and great fanbases with no love lost.

It wouldn’t hurt to keep a couple guys home either who understand the history. Just last night we had Zion Stanford (West Catholic), Hysier Miller (Neumann Goretti), Lynn Greer III (Roman), Jahmir Brickus (Coatesville), Eric Dixon (Abington), Jordan Longino (GA), Hakim Hart (Roman), Xzayvier Brown (Roman), Anthony Finkley (Roman) all play significant minutes during their games. That’s amazing! They might’ve not grown up in the heyday of the Big 5, but they definitely remember attending games or watching on TV.

The intensity last night at the Temple/La Salle game was awesome! Back and forth back and forth. It took three overtimes to decide who was playing in the championship on Saturday:

It was one of the best games I’ve ever been to and both teams treated the game like it meant a lot more than just another Big 5 matchup. Temple grinded out a win after five players fouled out. Brickus set a Big 5 record with 41 points. We even had one of the greatest stat lines I’ve ever seen:

That’s Big 5 basketball!

Sure the Wells Fargo Center wanted Nova in the Big 5 Classic championship so they could sell the most tickets (on sale now). But do these two teams in the championship not scream Big 5? Two teams led by guards from Philly, undersized, and underdogs. It’s the perfect matchup for the first championship under the new Big 5 format.