By Mark Donovan
The City 6 schools — Temple, Drexel, Villanova, La Salle, Saint Joseph’s and Penn — will be split into two three-team pods.
The pods will play each other early in the season, with the winners of each pod playing in a championship game at the Wells Fargo Center on the first Saturday of December. There will also be third and fifth place games based on the team’s record in their pod.
“Wasn’t a lot of discussion amongst the coaches,” La Salle coach Fran Dunphy told the Temple News earlier this year.
“I’m willing to take a look and see how these next two years come out and see if it’s a home run for everybody. We have quite an institution and I’ve always been a guy who wants to try new things.”
During the 2022 Big 5 doubleheader, the more than 8,7000-seat Palestra had poor attendance at both games, and the newest version will take place at the 19,500-seat Wells Fargo Center.
However, this format opens up at least one more out-of-conference contest for the Owls during the season, given they will not play every City 6 school.
Official unveiling of new Big 5 (including Drexel) tournament format next Tuesday at Wells Fargo Center, which will host the final.
— Mike Jensen (@jensenoffcampus) April 5, 2023
