The Big 5 is an informal association of college athletic programs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is not a conference, but rather a group of NCAA Division I basketball schools who compete for the city’s collegiate championship. The Big 5 originally consisted of the University of Pennsylvania, La Salle University, Saint Joseph's University, Temple University, and Villanova University. According to a January 2023 report by The Athletic, at the start of the 2023-24 season, Drexel will be joining the Big 5, which will be renamed the Philly Six. Drexel, La Salle, Penn, Saint Joseph's, and Temple are located in Philadelphia proper and Villanova is in a nearby Main Line campus. Big 5 schools represent some of the oldest and most successful men's basketball programs in the nation. Four of the five teams—Temple (5th), Villanova (19th), Penn (22nd), and Saint Joseph's (47th)—are in the top-50 for all-time Division I basketball victories. , at least one team from the Big 5 had made it into the NCAA Tournament since the 1978 edition. Each year the Herb Good Basketball Club selects All-Big 5 teams, as well as a coach of the year, and the most outstanding player in Big 5 competition receives the Robert V. Geasey Trophy. The Big 5 creed reads: "They say there's no trophy for winning the Big Five. They must not be from Philadelphia." History Big 5 (1955-2022) The Big 5 was formed in 1955 a year after La Salle won the 1954 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The group showcased Philadelphia's basketball talent and helped pay for the upkeep on the Palestra, on the University of Pennsylvania's campus where the games historically took place. Games were scheduled as double or triple-headers. All schools agreed to split ticket and concessions revenues equally once Penn was paid for upkeep costs on the Palestra. The arrangement promoted already intense intra-city collegiate basketball rivalries dating back three decades or more. During the heyday of the Big 5, many major college programs, especially in the northeastern United States, were independents. As the Big East and Atlantic 10 conferences expanded to cover most of the Northeast (Villanova joined the Big East, while Temple, St. Joseph's, and La Salle joined the Atlantic 10, the University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Ivy League), and as college basketball became increasingly driven by television and its need to appeal to a broad national audience, the local