The Philadelphia Big 5 released their end-of-season awards on Tuesday afternoon and five Villanovans were honored by the organization. The highest honor from the City Series went to women’s basketball head coach, Harry Perretta, who was named Big 5 women’s coach of the year. Junior forward Laura Sweeney joined him on the honors list,...
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The timing couldn’t be much worse for St. Joseph’s basketball fans. Their celebration over winning the Holy War was cut short when former Hawk Todd O’Brien opted to “tell all” to Sports Illustrated. The 7-foot tall center was at St. Joes for two seasons after transferring there from Bucknell. After completing his studies, he...
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Saint Josephs comes into their Big 5 rivalry game with a 7-3 record, one of their best starts in recent years. Their three losses include an 8-point loss to Seton Hall and a double-overtime lose to a very good Iona squad. The highlight early on, however, was their win on Saturday over a Creighton...
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It has been a Big 5 tradition since the 1950s for students of the various schools to bring long signs containing fortune-cookie-like statements, insults and other messages to unfurl and pass down the student section for the delight of the crowd and disdain of the opponent. Throughout the hey-day of the Big 5, where...
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Villanova has three losses in December for the first time since the 2002-03 season, where the team opened with a loss against a Dwayne Wade led Marquette and also dropped games to Charleston and Penn by December 10th. That team would also lose a fourth game to Dayton before flipping the calendar to 2003....
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The first Big 5 game of the season was a classic contest at the Palestra, where a resurgent Penn team hung close with Temple, ultimately losing to the Owls 73-67 in overtime at the Palestra. It was Temple’s 5th straight victory over Penn. Zach Rosen lead all scorers with 27 points to lead the...
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Tom Muldoon, the former long-time head of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, proposed an interesting new twist in Big 5 play. He hopes that the Big 5 schools — Villanova, Temple, Penn, La Salle and St. Joes — will take the court against five Division 1 schools from New York City. Those New...
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Who have been the best Villanova players over the past decade? Jon Tannenwald is asking for nominations on his blog, Soft Pretzel Logic. For me there are two players this decade that are locks to make any such team: Allan Ray and Scottie Reynolds. Both had tremendous four-year careers on the Main Line. The...
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La Salle has lost their last eight meetings with the Villanova Wildcats. Their last meeting was an 81-63 ‘Cats win at the Pavilion, and Aaric Murray, then a freshman, scored 15 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and blocked two shots for the Explorers. This season the Explorers and their highly-rated forward are 6-3 coming into...
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Last year, the Quakers didn’t record their first victory until January 6th and recorded only 6 wins in total (their best likely being a shocking upset of a ranked Cornell team). So far this season the much-improved Quakers are over .500 (4-3) and have a much rosier outlook under new head coach Jerome Allen....
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