{"id":865297,"date":"2026-10-22T22:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T22:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/865297\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T22:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T22:51:21","slug":"villanova-is-leaving-philadelphias-big-5-following-2026-27-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/865297\/","title":{"rendered":"Villanova Is Leaving Philadelphia\u2019s Big 5 Following 2026-27 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It\u2019s official. This will be the last season of one of the longstanding traditions in college basketball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">On Thursday, Villanova announced that it will be leaving the Big 5 beginning during the 2027-28 season. The series will continue on with a round-robin format featuring five teams \u2014 Penn, La Salle, Temple, St. Joseph\u2019s, and Drexel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cVillanova University has great respect for the history and tradition of the Big 5,\u201d Villanova said in a statement. \u201cOver the past year, we have engaged in lengthy discussions with our Big 5 partners about strategies to move forward in the years ahead. Together we explored several models and were close to an agreement at one point but could not get unanimity on a new scheduling format beginning in 2027. Villanova remains committed to supporting Philadelphia basketball. Ultimately, we must also balance what is in the best interests of Villanova Basketball for success in the modern landscape of college athletics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Philadelphia Inquirer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/college-sports\/big-five-mens-basketball-classic-format-without-villanova-20261022.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> that Villanova wanted to guarantee that it would not have to play a Big 5 road game. This was not agreed upon by all schools.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Villanova won its 30th Big 5 championship last year following a 90-63 win against Penn. This came in the first season under the new format where teams will play one home game and one road game before a triple-header at XFinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Big 5 was founded in 1954 and is entering its 72nd season of competition. The first game was played in 1955 when St. Joseph\u2019s defeated Villanova at the Palestra.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This is a decision that has brought out the opinion of many college basketball fans \u2014 many against the decision of Kevin Willard and the Wildcats. For these fans, many who have probably not watched Big 5 games in years, it is another reason to dislike Willard. In today\u2019s era of college basketball, this is a decision that should not come as a surprise. Aside from tradition, it makes sense for Villanova in a scheduling sense. Now, Willard will have to make it count in the non-conference schedule moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s official. This will be the last season of one of the longstanding traditions in college basketball. On&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,7141],"class_list":["post-865297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-villanova-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117487015286113288","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}