|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Philly is back
Few basketball things are more poignant than a kid in some eastern Kentucky hollow crying himself to sleep after a UK loss. Except maybe an entire Indiana town caravaning for hours to watch its high school dispute a state tournament game. Or the 24/7 love for the game you'll find in Harlem, Brooklyn and the boogie-down Bronx. Indeed, in SI's College Basketball Preview issue just last week, I rhapsodized about New York City and its proud legacy of point guards. But if there's one place in America where the fabric of life has a pebblegrain brocade, it's Philadelphia. When all is right with Philly basketball, all is right with the world. And basketball in the City of Brotherly Love is looking pretty lovely right now. It's not just that the Sixers are sitting atop the Atlantic Division. (Larry Brown did know something when he turned down North Carolina last spring.) It's that we can once again enjoy the characteristic Philadelphia basketball experience in the classic Philly place. Big Five, City Series basketball is back at the Palestra, next to which Cameron Indoor Stadium looks sterile, Allen Fieldhouse feels like the Staples Center and Albuquerque's Pit is the pits. Once upon a time Philadelphians shoehorned themselves into that shrine on the Penn campus for doubleheader madness. One of the local Big Five (the host Quakers, along with La Salle, St. Joseph's, Temple and Villanova) would take on some national power in the opener. After which two local sides would go fratricidal in the City Series nightcap. Then the Big East came along. League founder Dave Gavitt had no use or feel for a hot pretzel on a cold winter night's walk back to 30th Street Station following a visit to "Panicsville, U.S.A.," as longtime Big Five broadcaster Les Keiter used to call the place. Gavitt peeled Villanova away from its Big Five brethren. After 'Nova's 1985 NCAA title, Wildcats coach Rollie Massimino suffered delusions of grandeur, making clear that he wanted little to do with the city. The feeling quickly became mutual, and Massimino lit out for the comparatively profane precincts of Las Vegas. But the damage had been done. To keep up with 'Nova, three other Big Five schools retreated into their own on-campus arenas, and the Palestra was left to languish. Until last season. Today, not every Big Five matchup takes place at the Palestra, and the schools aren't splitting the gate and concession revenue equally, as they had in the past. But a full round robin of City Series games is being played once again, half of them precisely where they should be, at 33rd Street. The heroes in this turnabout include Villanova coach Steve Lappas and the Big Five athletic directors -- men wise enough to understand that vision sometimes requires a glance backward. As for the villain whose dastardly deed had to be undone, how about this for a last laugh? Today you'll find Rollie Massimino in Cleveland. The Big Five will never return to the days when Jack Ramsay, then the coach at St. Joe's, declared that winning the City Series meant more to him than winning a national title. And this season none of the Big Five besides Temple, and perhaps Villanova, has a shot at the Final Four. But when the Owls and Wildcats hook up on Dec. 5, it will be the start of the second season of something even more welcome than the Sixers' return to the top -- a reborn Big Five. So herewith a list -- a drastically abridged list, alas -- of things I love about hoops culture along the Schuykill: "Everything about Philadelphia is imperfect," former Boston Celtic M.L. Carr said years ago, at the height of the rivalry between the Celts and Sixers. "Even the Liberty Bell has a crack in it." It's still imperfect. But basketball in Philly is much improved from its recent dire straits. Welcome back, Liberty bellwether -- where, on the whole, I'd rather be. Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of the forthcoming Called for Traveling: A Year in the Country of Basketball. He can be reached at awolff@si.timeinc.com.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
