Cremedela Cramer

Readers of the various Crimson sports columns during the past few weeks have had to put up with a barrage of propaganda for various southern schools. We have been told that only players from the Atlantic Coast Conference know how to dribble a basketball, and that the only place where football is being played correctly is south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Although I do not choose to argue with the southern football claim, I must take issue with the imminently dubious argument of southern basketball superiority.

It's pretty obvious to me, a Philadelphia native, that there is no basketball like Big Five Basketball.

Besides an incredible high school program which has produced such old stars as Wilt Chamberlain and Walt Hazzard, and recent pros Mike Banton, Geoff Petrie, and Ollie Johnson--all ten-point plus men--Philadelphia's city colleges have developed some incredibly competitive teams.

Temple, LaSalle, St. Josephs, Villanova, and Penn have placed teams in the NCAA post-season tournament for 16 straight years. No other city, not even Los Angeles, can claim that distinction.

The Big Five has also had its share of national battles. LaSalle and Tom Gola led the Big Five to a national championship in 1954, and Villanova broke the Atlantic Coast Conference's dominance on the Eastern regional, and wound up finishing second to UCLA in 1971.

The Big Five can and has placed three teams in the tourney in the last three years. The winner from the Middle Atlantic Conference (almost always LaSalle, St. Josephs or Temple), the Ivy League Champ (Penn, of course), and the one eastern independent selection, (usually Villanova) go into the post season action.

The reason for this remarkable record of five city schools can easily be found in the city's highly intensive public and Catholic basketball leagues. Although certain stars such as Andre McCarter of UCLA and Mo Howard of Maryland have chosen to leave the city, most of the top talent will enroll in one of the five schools.

Typical of this situation is the Temple team that beat Harvard in the first round of the Quaker City Tournament last December. In that tourney-winning Owl squad, there wasn't a single player who hadn't come up through the ranks of Philadelphia's city basketball factories.

So the next time you see a column arguing that the southerners have a monopoly on basketball, remember that Philly's Big Five clubs know how to dribble too. And when St. Josephs or Penn knocks out whichever team the ACC will send into the NCAA's tournament, then the southerners will have to put an end to their emotionalistic defense of the "great ACC basketball trust."