Villanova out, Drexel in
Villanova will leave Philadelphia’s Big 5 after the 2026-27 season. The announcement landed Thursday, and it ends the Wildcats’ run in a rivalry that has been around for roughly seven decades.
Penn, La Salle, Temple and Saint Joseph’s, the other four founding members, will carry on without them. Drexel, which joined as the sixth member before the 2023-24 season, takes the vacated spot. The five remaining schools said in a joint statement that they reached the decision “following thoughtful discussions” and that it moves forward “without Villanova’s participation.”
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A champion walks out the door
The timing stings. Villanova is the defending Big 5 champion and holds the record with 30 titles, 18 of them outright. Temple sits second with 28. Nobody in the city has won this thing more often.
The source ties the change to the shifting NCAA landscape, where schools keep reassessing how their athletics programs fit broader institutional priorities. For the other five, the response is stability. The Big 5 returns to a round-robin schedule in 2027-28, with home and away games, the format used from 1955 to 2023. The schools called it “valuable scheduling stability in an increasingly complex Division I environment.”
What comes next
This season is the last one with Villanova involved. It will also be the final edition of the Big 5 Classic, a tripleheader set for Dec. 5 at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia. After that, the city’s old basketball rivalry goes forward as a five-team round robin.
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