Photos: Ryan Nix

By: Rich Flanagan

PHILADELPHIA –  As St. Joe’s put the finishing touches on its 82-68 win over La Salle to claim the Big 5 Classic Championship Game, the entire team donned champion shirts in front of a descending banner with the Big 5 logo emblazoned behind them while head coach Billy Lange did an interview for NBC Sports Philadelphia on the floor of the Wells Fargo Center.

It provides a template for determining a definitive champion and gives the Big 5 its day in the limelight on the first Saturday in December.

As the Big 5 attempts to recapture some of the luster of its heralded history while figuring out a way to remain relevant in the ever-changing landscape of college basketball, Lange wants everyone to appreciate the event and its significance.

“It’s appropriate to recognize the blessing that is to compete in it and to have a moment like this,” Lange said.

Dunphy went from recruiting guys like Ryan Brooks (Lower Merion), Lavoy Allen (Pennsbury), Scootie Randall (Communications Tech) and Khalif Wyatt (Norristown) to getting local prospects out of the NCAA transfer portal like Demetrius Lilley, who is having the best statistical season of his collegiate career after coming over from Penn State. Lilley was the 2022 Central League MVP who scored 1,301 career points at Lower Merion and after not finding a role at Penn State, he’s thriving for the Explorers. Lilley hit three three-pointers and finished with 12 points and seven rebounds but had to leave the game early after landing awkwardly on his wrist in the loss to Hawks.

Drexel head coach Zach Spiker attended The Hill School in Pottstown and has been familiar with the Big 5 for decades. Furthermore, he served on now University of Pennsylvania head coach Steve Donahue’s staff at Cornell as a volunteer assistant coach then later took the head coaching job at Army where he recruited locally, most notably Archbishop Wood’s Tommy Funk. He’s had some success recruiting locally, bringing in the likes of Archbishop Wood products Justin Moore and Josh Reed, and Horace Simmons from La Salle College High School.

Spiker and the Dragons took down Donahue and the Quakers, 60-47 behind Methacton product Cole Hargrove’s 17 points and 13 points and Executive Education Academy Charter School alum Kobe Magee’s 12 points. Hargrove was part of a Methacton team that won the 2020 District 1-6A title during his junior season then averaged 15.6 ppg and 11.2 rpg as a senior while also setting a program record with 90 blocks. Hargrove is having the best season of his collegiate career after averaging one point through his first two years.

As the Big 5 innovates in an attempt to sustain its legitimacy, the pursuit of local recruits who can come in and dramatically change a program is something all six are very much dealing with. While the event offers the stage of an NBA arena and a guarantee of one game on that floor each year, the fact of the matter is whether the allure is big enough to turn the tide on keeping players local.

Eric Dixon has been one of the premier scorers in the nation this season, avg. 25.8 ppg and poured in 24 points with five three-pointers in a 94-65 rout of Temple in the third-place game.

He has looked very much like the player who caught the attention of several high major programs when he avg. 27.9 points and 11.6 rebounds as a senior at Abington and won back-to-back Pa. All-State Class 6A Player of the Year awards. Dixon scored an Abington record 2,454 career points and performances like his 50-point game against Springfield (Montco.) in January 2019 are what made him such a hot commodity.

Dixon redshirted his freshman year and morphed into a player that has started every game he has been eligible for over the last four seasons, which included a Final Four run in 2021-22. He chose to stay local and is closing in on 2,000 career points with the Wildcats.

Nisine “Wooga” Poplar returned to Pa. after playing three seasons at Miami (Fla.) including a Final Four appearance in 2022-23. He led now defunct Math, Civics & Sciences to its first Philadelphia Public League title as a junior and scored 1,490 career points there.

Like Dixon, he has been an everyday starter over the last three years and was certainly one that got away, like Lilley, but chose to return home and help a program in need of production and wins.

“[Wooga] has had games where he’s gotten shots,” Neptune said. “He’s defended and rebounded at a high level. He’s always guarding one of the team’s best players. He’s done a great job at that. We know he’s going to make open shots over the course of the season, so we’re not worried about that.”

Meanwhile, Christian Ray stayed local and went to La Salle and a few years later his former teammate, Jameel Brown returned to the area as he now plays for Temple following his first two seasons at Penn State.

Seeing former local standouts come back to play for Big 5 programs is a welcome sign, especially in this day and age of the portal and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). Yet, Villanova and St. Joe’s are the two of the five (or six) programs that have had the most success in recent years recruiting locally.

Going back to when Wright was still roaming the sideline, Villanova has attracted Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree (Neumann-Goretti) and Collin Gillespie (Archbishop Wood), both of whom played integral parts in the run to the 2018 National Championship, and Jordan Longino (Germantown Academy). St. Joe’s hit with Chris Clover (St. Joe’s Prep) and Lamarr Kimble (Neumann-Goretti) and later went back to South Philadelphia to find Jordan Hall, who later spent time with the San Antonio Spurs.

Hall was one of Lange’s first major recruits and he thinks he has struck gold again in Xzayvier Brown, the Roman Catholic product who has hit the ground running since joining the program last season.

What the Big 5 Classic gave the city was a picture of local stardom coming full circle as Brown, Dixon, Poplar, Hargrove, and Lilley shined on one court in a single day. Dunphy used to win with local recruits and now he’s winning with players who have joined through the portal. He will be the first to express that roster construction isn’t easy, but coaches need to understand how the landscape is changing and figure out how to navigate it in order to build a team.

“You’ve got to put a team together,” Dunphy said. “That’s the way it is. You can complain about it if you want or enter the fray and get the best guys you can.”

Recruiting the better high school players in the area and keeping them here has always been difficult even going back the last few years. Social media has created more exposure and opportunities for players to get noticed and the growth of AAU basketball has presented more chances to play in front of Division I college coaches.

Derrick Jones Jr. left Archbishop Carroll as the all-time leading scorer with 1,645 points and is now starting for the Los Angeles Clippers. Before choosing UNLV, he had offers from St. Joe’s, Temple and Villanova but chose to forgo those to travel to Las Vegas. That’s one example of a missed opportunity to keep a local recruit local and the list has grown substantially over the last decade.

Mo Bamba (Westtown School) went to Texas and Quade Green (Neumann-Goretti) played for John Calipari at Kentucky before finishing his career at Washington. Green, who scored 1,853 career points and won four PIAA 3A titles, had Villanova and Temple in his final five schools.

Daron “Fatts” Russell left Imhotep Charter as its all-time leading scorer at 1,813 points and chose to go to Rhode Island (then Maryland) instead of accepting offers from La Salle and Temple and teammate David Beatty committed to South Carolina then transferred and played three seasons for the Explorers.

Westtown’s Cam Reddish played one season at Duke alongside Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett and Archbishop Wood’s Rahsool Diggins chose to play at UConn over La Salle, St. Joe’s, and Villanova. Lynn Greer III is now suiting up for his father’s alma mater but began his career at Dayton and played two seasons with the Hawks under Lange.

Dereck Lively II (Westtown) was the top ranked recruit in his class and played a year at Duke and Philadelphia native Jalen Duren, who played two seasons at Roman Catholic before making the jump to Montverde Academy (Fla.) in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, played one season at Memphis.

Daniel Skillings Jr., who only had Temple in his top-10 schools, picked Cincinnati and has carved out a good career with the Bearcats. Justin Edwards (Imhotep) is on a two-way contract with the Philadelphia 76ers after one season at Kentucky. The latest misses for Big 5 programs include Archbishop Wood’s Jalil Bethea (Miami (Fla.)), Imhotep’s Ahmad Nowell (UConn), and Archbishop Ryan’s Thomas Sorber (Georgetown).

This is a large sample size over spanning nearly a decade and while it doesn’t completely tell the whole story, it showcases enough evidence that local recruits have looked elsewhere instead of remaining in the area. Team success is another barometer for local recruits and postseason success is intermingled in that.

Furthermore, it has been some time since a majority of the Big 5 programs were relevant at the same time. Only twice since the turn of the century have three Big 5 schools made the NCAA Tournament in the same season (prior to Drexel’s acceptance): 2013 (La Salle, Temple, Villanova) and 2016 (St. Joe’s, Temple, Villanova).

There have been seven instances within that span where only one program advanced to March Madness, leaving the others to figure out how to reshape the roster and entice recruits. It will be interesting to see how future recruiting classes view the Big 5 Classic and the impact it will have on their decision.

The class of 2024 is the final class with the extra year of COVID eligibility and that could allow for recruitment of high school players to expand. The transfer portal is still as prevalent as ever, even for the Big 5, and recruiting locally will still be done but to what extent. Zion Green, a 6-7 sophomore wing at Imhotep with offers from Penn State and Syracuse, was on the floor as St. Joe’s posed in front of the Big 5 Classic banner. The son of former La Salle standout Rodney Green will be one of the most coveted recruits locally and nationally and seeing him there bodes well for the Hawks.

A lot can and will change by the time Green decides where to play in college but on this day, he sat courtside at the event. On the first Saturday in December, the Big 5 Classic captivated the city and filled the Wells Fargo Center with fans hoping to capture the past while dreaming of the future.