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One Thing Hurting the Big 5 is that Nobody Knows Who the Hell These Players Are
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I watched a bit of the Temple and Central Connecticut State game the other night. Why? For journalism! Gotta follow the Big 5 schools and watch the games to know what we’re actually talking about.
The Owls started one guy who was on the team last year, senior Gavin Griffiths, who came over in 2025 from Nebraska. He didn’t shoot the ball particularly well in the opener but finished with 11, 8, and 3 in 29 minutes. The other recognizable face was Derrian Ford, who led the Owls in scoring last season. He came off the bench this time to core 5 points in 19 minutes, while the other guys were transfers or didn’t play last year. There was a lot of Googling on the phone to try to figure out who everybody else was. This was largely the same for the other three Big 5 teams that have played a regular season game.
As a quick exercise, here’s who Nova, Temple, La Salle, and Drexel started in their season openers, and where they played last year:
Villanova vs. Notre Dame
- Tyler Perkins – Villanova
- Devin Royal – Ohio State
- Luigi Suigo – (freshman)
- Jake Fiegen – Cornell
- Darryl Simmons II – St. Bonaventure
Even the guys who came off the bench are new. Kwame Evans Jr. from Oregon played 22 minutes. Elijah Crawford came from UIC. And Adam Oumiddoch is a freshman. It’s basically an entirely new Wildcats team outside of Perkins and the injured Matt Hodge.
Temple vs. CCSU
- Christian Beam – Georgia State
- Jordan Marsh – Southern Cal
- Dez White – Oregon State
- Gavin Griffiths – Temple
- Cam Scott – redshirted / last played for South Carolina
Beam, Marsh, and white are new. Scott was an Owl last season, but didn’t play. Deuce Drake is a former Drexel player who missed last season at Indiana with an injury. Baboucarr Njie is a UTSA transfer and played 30 minutes off the bench.
La Salle vs. Houston
- Rob Dockery – La Salle
- Anthony Finkley – St. Joe’s
- Noah Collier – La Salle / injured for most of last season
- Jaden Johnson – La Salle / missed entire non-conference last year with injury
- Kam Burton – Stone Cold Stephen F. Austin
La Salle actually has some continuity in the starting lineup, sort of. Getting Dockery to return was big. Finkley left SJU but stayed in the Big 5. Collier and Johnson were Explorers last season but missed a lot of games due to injury. Bowyn Beatty is in the same boat.
Elsewhere on the roster, Devin Booker is a Philly kid who transferred from George Mason while RJ Smith is a freshman from Roman Catholic. Trey Moss, Vice Zanki, and Francois Nkoy-Eale are transfers.
Drexel vs. Virginia
- David Simonovic – (freshman out of France)
- Clem Edomwonyin – Drexel / missed last season with injury
- Adrian Petkovic – (freshman out of Germany)
- Latief Lorenzano-White – (freshman / Imhotep)
- Josh Reed – Drexel
Drexel’s starting five included three freshman, one local product, and two from Europe. Zach Spiker returned Josh Reed but lost his top four scorers to South Carolina, Iona, and graduation.
Penn and St. Joe’s haven’t played regular season games yet, but the Quakers are mostly intact with T.J. Power, Michael Zanoni, and AJ Levine back. Ethan Roberts went to Notre Dame. SJU has the excellent Jaiden Glover-Toscano returning alongside Khaafiq Myers and Austin Williford, but lost Derek Simpson and Dasear Haskins to Providence and Ole Miss.
Anyway – you get the point. It’s hard to keep track of these guys. Long gone are the days of building familiarity with a team and a roster and getting to really know these players and how the pieces fit together. Now you get a cobbled-together collection of guys for maybe a year before they move on. Even just having guys like Glover-Toscano and Dockery and Perkins back is helpful right now, but we’re not going to get another 2004 St. Joe’s or 2018 Villanova, not in the sense that they were generational teams, but because they had collections of juniors and seniors who who played together for years. They built a chemistry and rapport that we’ll never see again in college basketball, certainly not in this era.
And when these players are leaving after one year, how do you build any kind of real connection? Any kind of rooting interest or booing interest? Duke and Syracuse always had an annoying upperclassman white point guard who everybody hated. JJ Redick, Eric Devendorf, Greg Paulus, etc. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We hated those guys not just because they were irksome, but because it festered within us for four long seasons.
Imagine if every Sixers player left after one year, or two years. You can’t form any kind of attachment to those players. Guys like DeAndre’ Bembry and Tyrone Garland played four seasons for their Big 5 teams. Malik Rose, Lynn Greer, etc. It’s not happening in the NIL era, where everybody is now a mercenary, justifiably chasing more money at bigger schools.
At least we do have some local products staying home, which helps. Look at RJ Smith for La Salle or Lorenzano-White at Drexel this year. Collier is a South Jersey guy who made it back to the region. If you’re a Philly hoop head, you know guys like these.
Otherwise, you need a cheat sheet with a long list of names and transfer history just to figure out who you’re even watching on the floor. Sure, if you’re a college basketball diehard, you may have seen the top guys at other schools, but what percentage of Philly basketball fans watched any amount of George Washington or Oregon State last year? Not many, if any.
It just takes away from the overall buzz. It’s hard to get really excited and invested when you have to learn and familiarize yourself with a new team every year. But we’re going to try.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com