St. Joseph's/La Salle Headlines Packed Weekend in Philly Sports

A few short seasons ago, a Big 5 championship game without Villanova seemed wildly improbable. Villanova is playing Temple this weekend…for third place. It’s the Hawks and the Explorers playing for city bragging rights. The rest of the weekend’s slate is absolutely jammed. Both the Sixers and Flyers will play twice. Penn State will face Oregon in the Big Ten Championship game. And the Eagles will try to keep pace with the Detroit Lions with a win over the Carolina Panthers. LET’S GO.

In the email today:

• 🏀 Wells Fargo Center to Host Second Annual Big 5 Classic on Saturday

• ⬇️ Flyers' Gutty Comeback Undone by Discipline Breakdown in Loss to Panthers

• 🦅 Eagles' Postseason Path Becomes Clearer with Lions' Thrilling Win Over Packers

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

In 2023, the inaugural Toyota Big 5 Classic marked a new chapter in the long, proud history of Philadelphia men's college basketball.

By all accounts, the event was a huge success. And on Saturday, the 2024 iteration of the Big 5 Classic is expected to be just as fun.

For those unfamiliar, the schools in the Philly Big 5 (Temple, Penn, Villanova, La Salle, St. Joe's, and newly-added Drexel) revamped the format for naming a Big 5 champion last season.

The six teams were split into two three-team pods, with round-robin play taking place on the schools' courts.

The results of those preliminary games set up seeding for a tripleheader at the Wells Fargo Center, with two teams playing for fifth place, two teams playing for third place, and St. Joe's facing Temple in the championship game.

St. Joe's won, 74-65, and their 2023 Big 5 championship banner now hangs from the Wells Fargo rafters.

On Pattison spoke Thursday with Mike Sulkes, General Manager of the Wells Fargo Center and Director of the Toyota Men's Big 5 Classic, about this year's version of the event.

"I don't know if we made any major changes, because the first year went really well," said Sulkes. "From the student participation, to the buzz around the city, to the actual basketball being played . . . We're really excited to get that atmosphere back in the Wells Fargo Center."

Based on this year's pod results, St. Joe's will look to defend its championship against La Salle at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. Villanova will face Temple at 4:30 p.m. to determine third place, and Penn will play Drexel at 2:00 p.m for fifth place.

"My favorite part of the ['23] event was having all six fans bases in the arena at one time," Sulkes said. "It was so cool to walk around and see every school represented, see groups of friends together with different team paraphernalia on . . . just that kind of atmosphere that is so unique to Philadelphia."

St. Joe's is led by Philly native and Roman Catholic alum Xzayvier Brown, who is averaging 16 points per game. His teammate, Camden native Rasheer Fleming, leads the team with 9 rebounds per game and is a potential NBA lottery pick.

La Salle, meanwhile, led by head coach Fran Dunphy, will rely heavily on Corey McKeithan, who is currently averaging 19 points per game. Dunphy plans to bring his team to Wells Fargo via SEPTA, something he did during his time at Temple prior to big wins over Duke and Kansas.

Doors open to fans at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Entering last night’s game with the Flyers, the Florida Panthers had a +11 goal difference, scoring 3.7 goals per game.

Conversely, the Flyers were -10 and were giving up an average of 3.3 goals every time out while scoring fewer than three times per game.

That read pretty easily as a tepid 4-2 Panthers win or some reasonable facsimile thereof. So, of course, it ended up being a shootout with wild swings. Ain’t sports great?

Matvei Michkov was the engine behind the comeback, assisting on three of the five goals. Owen Tippett scored twice in 25 seconds to tie the game at four late in the second period.

Garnet Hathaway’s third goal of the season gave the Flyers the lead with 14:21 to go in the third period. For the next nine minutes, it looked like 5-4 could be the final score.

It didn’t work out that way.

That goal was a very harmless looking and speculative shot that Aleksei Kolosov (who spelled Ivan Fedotov after the first period) just didn’t pick up in the air. These things happen.

But in the end, the Flyers were the architects of their own demise with a widespread discipline breakdown in the closing stages of the game.

Bobby Brink and Travis Konecny both took minor penalties at 14:27 of the third period ending a Flyers power play; the game-tying goal thus came at even strength.

Then Joel Farabee took an inexcusable double minor (roughing and cross-checking) which gave the Panthers the late power play that sealed the Flyers’ fate.

Perhaps no one expected the Flyers to beat the defending Stanley Cup champions last night. It was a big ask.

Except…once they had the lead in the third period, it was fair to ask that at the very least the Flyers wouldn’t just give the game back to the Panthers. Which is precisely what they did.

The Flyers are having a better season than most pundits expected them to have before it started. Last night proved, though, that they are nowhere near good enough to play careless hockey against a good team and hope to survive. This loss was a setback.

They’re in Boston Saturday afternoon, a place where they’ve struggled. So there’s no time for moping. The Bruins are another upper-echelon Eastern Conference foe.

John Tortorella has his work cut out getting the Flyers back on track after this loss.

Last season, the Thursday Night Football games were on the whole pretty dreadful. We knew it was bad when Al Michaels himself was slagging the product.

The NFL listened to Al. This year’s Thursday night schedule has been demonstrably stronger. Last night’s game might have been the best Thursday Night Football presentation this season, with the 11-1 Detroit Lions hosting the 9-3 Green Bay Packers.

The game had a little bit of everything. Lions’ coach Dan Campbell did a pretty compelling Nick Sirianni impression, going for it on 4th down FIVE TIMES (and converting it four times). And like Sirianni so often has, Campbell came out on top.

This game was inevitably a good news/bad news situation for Eagles fans. Had the Packers won, it would have knocked the Lions back a peg, but it also would have put the Pack that much closer to the Birds in the chase for a high playoff seed.

As it happened, the Lions won. The Packers will probably be very hard-pressed to catch the Eagles now. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Lions are now 12-1 and have a stronger grip on the #1 seed in the NFC and the accompanying bye.

The Packers did provide the Eagles with a blueprint for giving the Lions trouble. Josh Jacobs ran for three touchdowns, and the Packers averaged 4.1 yards per carry. But Jordan Love could only manage 12-20 for 206 yards, which proved the Pack’s undoing.

As for the Lions, they remain electrifying on offense, vulnerable on defense. And Jared Goff is still occasionally good for one of these.

This was a very entertaining game, and perhaps more importantly, a game that should really encourage Eagles fans.

The Eagles have a better quarterback than Jordan Love. They have the best running back in football in Saquon Barkley. They have a much stronger defense than the Packers do. And the visiting Packers lost on the final possession of the game.

All in all, a pretty good night for Eagles fans on a night their team didn’t play.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

The 1979-80 Flyers still hold the longest unbeaten streak in major North American sports history, after going 35 consecutive games without a loss between Oct. 14 and Jan. 6.

On December 6, 1979, they dropped nine goals on the Kings.

📊 Poll

Results from Thursday:

🔗 Links

• 🏀 You’re not going to believe this, but Joel Embiid is out again tomorrow night.

• 🙄 Given his history of running his mouth, no one should be surprised about Jadaveon Clowney’s remarks about Eagles fans in advance of Sunday’s game.

• 🟦 BIll Belichick coaching the North Carolina Tar Heels? Maybe.

• 🪶 The cellar-dwelling Chicago Blackhawks couldn’t fire all of the players, so former Flyer Luke Richardson had to go.

• 🖋️ Sydney Thomas’ autographed trading card will set you back $75.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

Friday, December 6, 2024

• Sixers at Magic, 7:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Saturday, December 7, 2024

• Flyers at Bruins, 1:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Sunday, December 8, 2024

• Eagles vs. Panthers, 1:00 p.m. (FOX)

• Sixers at Bulls, 1:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

• Flyers vs. Utah Hockey Club, 7:30 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Thanks for reading. See you Monday.

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