'V' for vulnerability: Big Five struggles could spell doom for Villanova's season

For the better part of 20 years, the Villanova Wildcats were the standard of excellence for men's college basketball in Philadelphia.

Between 2001 and 2022, head coach Jay Wright led Villanova to 16 NCAA tournaments and four Final Four appearances. The Wildcats won two national championships in three seasons, a nearly impossible feat given the volatility of March Madness.

Locally, Villanova turned into the class of Philadelphia's "Big Five," an informal union now comprised of six teams: the Wildcats, Temple Owls, Pennsylvania Quakers, La Salle Explorers, St. Joseph's Hawks and Drexel Dragons. Drexel has no national success to speak of, while Penn and La Salle each haven't been ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 since the 1990s. Temple's national prominence in the 1980s and 90s declined at the turn of the millennium, and aside from a number-one seed in the 2004 tournament, St. Joseph's has seldom been heard from. This allowed Villanova to dominate the Big Five for the 21st century.

Since Wright's 2022 retirement, however, the Wildcats have found themselves in the unfamiliar territories of mediocrity and uncertainty.

After settling for an NIT berth last season, second-year head coach Kyle Neptune led Villanova to a tournament championship in the "Battle 4 Atlantis" over Thanksgiving week. The showcase was highlighted by an upset win over North Carolina. But upon their return from the Bahamas Wednesday night, the 18th-ranked Wildcats were stunned at home by St. Joseph's, 78-65. It was the Hawks' first win since 2011 in a rivalry known as the "Holy War," and their first victory at Villanova since 2004.