The second annual Big 5 Classic for men’s basketball took place at the Wells Fargo Center, where the six Philadelphia schools faced off in a triple header.
Family, friends, fans, and alumni came out to support their schools in the day-long Big 5 Classic and got to play games on the concourse and shoot their own hoops.
“A friend of ours is a Drexel alumni, and he invited us here. We’re a group of six that all attended Villanova undergrad, Drexel undergrad, Temple grad school, and were all here to have a good time and root for my Cats,” Villanova fan Amy White Ortiz said.
“I go to Temple obviously, my mom went to Temple, my dad went to Villanova, so it was kind of like a family rivalry,” Temple fan Evan Kent said.
The six schools were separated into two different pods of three where they played one another during the season to see what place they would compete for in the classic.
After Temple’s loss to La Salle this season, it put them second in their pod. They then had to play Villanova to fight for third place in the Big 5 Classic.
“I think it’s a great matchup, you know, two rivals who have had a lot of history in the past. Obviously the Big 5 is one of the most story rivals in college basketball so it should be a good game,” Temple fan Sean McMenamin said.
Quante Berry was out this game for the Owls, allowing freshman guard Aiden Tobiason to log more minutes on the court than he had all season at this time.
“Obviously Lynn Greers out and then Quantes our other primary ball handler. So now you go into the game without either one and I thought Quante did a great job last game rebounding. He had 15 rebounds as the point guard position. So now you have to quickly fill that void today and I thought Aiden Tobiason did it,” Temple Men’s Basketball head coach Adam Fisher said.
The Owls suffered their worst loss of the season against Nova in the classic 94-65 and ended up getting fourth place. They were outplayed the entire game, shooting just 37% from the field and 30% from beyond the arc.
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