City of Basketball Love

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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It was the kind of physical and grind-it-out first half where it appeared that the first team to break 50, assuming either team got there, would be the winner – just the type of start you’d expect from a de facto Big 5 championship game.

Given the fact that Villanova held a four-point lead over Temple with just under three minutes left in the first half, it didn’t seem like either team would find any offensive rhythm, let alone make double-digit three-pointers and put up almost 80 points on the scoreboard.

At that point, the No. 1 team in the country didn’t fully look like themselves on offense, and neither did their star player-of-the-year candidate, Josh Hart, who had just two points entering the last minute before the break, coming off of a 37-point performance in a win over Notre Dame.

“There’s a lot of guys who, after a 37-point game, you have two in the first half and you start panicking,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said.

Tuesday night, the word "panic" just wasn't in Hart's vocabulary.

Villanova closed the half with nine quick points – seven of which came from Hart, who finished with a game-high 26 – and used a dominant second half run to shut down their crosstown foes and earn their fourth straight Big 5 title, winning by a final score of 78-57.

“Wow, I didn’t even know that,” Wright said of his senior’s second-half point total. “The beauty of that is I’m sure he didn’t know that, I didn’t know that; he was just defending, he was getting good shots.

“I think the key is, and this is him being a senior, he doesn’t lose his composure.”

Hart, undoubtedly the city’s best current college player, is now part of a Villanova (11-0) senior class that is not only the first in Philadelphia to win Big 5 titles in each of its four seasons, but the first graduating class to never even lose a Big 5 contest.

That stellar trio of seniors – Hart, Kris Jenkins and Darryl Reynolds – combined for 45 points, as Jenkins dropped 12 points on 4-of-6 3-point shooting and Reynolds added seven points.

Those seniors, and their program as a whole, received high praise after the game not only from their own coach, but also from the opposition in Temple head coach Fran Dunphy, for what they’ve achieved within the city limits and beyond during their time as Wildcats.

“It’s a terrific basketball program, always has been, though,” he said. “That’s the issue, Jay’s done a wonderful job of putting it all together. This is a very special group, Hart and Jenkins have done some unbelievable things as a twosome. They were really good last year, they were really good the year before that, and they’re going to continue to be good because they have a great leader at the helm. It’s up to the rest of us to do what we can to be a better basketball program, which we are all trying to do.”

In true brotherly-love rivalry spirit, Wright expressed similar respect for the type of team Dunphy has built over on North Broad Street.

“They’re very good, obviously they’ve beaten two top-25 teams,” Wright said. “They beat a team in our league that’s going to be a good team, we have great respect for Temple and we value that win.”

In particular, Wright had high praise for Temple junior Obi Enechionyia, and was pleased to his team’s defensive effort in holding the 6-foot-10 forward to eight points on 3-of-9 shooting.

With Enechionyia kept in check, the Owls (7-4) relied on their guards, sophomore Shizz Alston, Jr. and senior Daniel Dingle to lead the scoring charge; Alston tallied 12, and Dingle finished with 11.

Enechionyia’s teammates found him on the arc for a couple of three-pointers during the late first and early second half to keep things close, but was relatively a non-factor in the paint.

“I think we did a great job on (Enechionyia),” Wright added. “We did a good job on him. I think he’s one of the best players in the country, I really do. We really wanted to try to limit his touches.”

It’s that kind of respect that keeps the importance of the Philly Big 5 in perspective, even though, to those outside the city, it may seem like the defending national champions are lightyears ahead and everyone else is playing for second place.

On the contrary, the Wildcats have had a few close calls on their current city sweep, including the first half of this game and a win over La Salle where Villanova’s lead was down to four with just over a minute remaining – a testament to how competitive the Big 5 is despite one team having such long-term control.

And even though that dominant team may have higher goals in sight down the road, there’s no minimizing the importance of their earning the title of best in the city over four years.

“We all in Philly know what a great feat that is,” Wright said. “We were in the La Salle game, we could’ve lost that game, we all know how it happens, we’ve all seen it. I don’t know if they know that across the country. But we do, and I think that’s why we play well in those games, because we respect those guys, we know they’re not going to quit, we know they’re well-coached. When the players understand that, you never have a let-down.”