Big 5 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2019-20 season
By Pan Karalis
With the 2019-20 season tipping off in less than two weeks, here is our final Big 5 basketball primer and power rankings
With the 2019-20 season tipping off in less than two weeks, it’s time to break down Philly hoops for the final time this off-season. There was plenty of moving and shaking around Big 5 basketball since last season ended in April, including the introduction of two new coaches, new faces heading to campuses and old ones leaving, even a new court design at Saint Joseph’s. There’s a new defending Big 5 champion for the first time since the 2013-14 season.
Players like Phil Booth, Shizz Alston, and Pookie Powell completed their eligibility and graduated, while stars and big names like Ali Demir, Fresh Kimble, Jared Bynum and Jahvon Quinerly transferred off of Big 5 basketball rosters. Eric Paschall and Charlie Brown have found homes on NBA rosters. Area-natives Jake Forrester and Clifton Moore transferred back to Philly schools from Indiana, while newcomers Monty Scott, Moustapha Diagne, and Ryan Daly are expected to have major impacts for their respective schools in their first season of eligibility.
Villanova and Pennsylvania are expecting to compete for conference championships, and Temple hopes to be in the mix for a Tournament bid come March. Saint Joseph’s will be fighting to finish ahead of Fordham and the Atlantic 10 cellar. La Salle, in Ash Howard’s second season, and a Drexel team still steadily recovering from one of its worst stretches as a division one program might have the pieces to challenge the middle of the pack in their respective leagues.
The Big 5 certainly feels different for long-time fans without anchor personalities like Phil Martelli, Fran Dunphy, and John Giannini. The landscape of Philly hoops has changed dramatically over the last year-and-a-half, but for schools that have made changes and looked in new directions for on-court leadership and program culture, there’s plenty of optimism heading into a new and exciting time for Big 5 basketball.
So here’s our final primer on the upcoming basketball season, ranking the Big 5 – plus everyone’s favorite gray area, Drexel – six through one.