Silcox | You’ve got to believe in the Big 5

The congratulations rolled in for the women’s basketball team.

It was a triumphant moment. The team that won just two games last season had picked up its sixth victory only halfway through the season. It was the 400th program win.

But most notably, it was a Big 5 win. Rarer than a Van Pelt carrel in December, a Big 5 win for Penn is a moment worth commemorating.

It had been exactly 22 games — more than six years — since the women had last felt that satisfaction.

Coach Mike McLaughlin had said a win over a City opponent was one of his goals all season, and the man charged with rebuilding the program appears to be doing just that, one check mark at a time.

“Before our first Big 5 game, we walked all around the entire Palestra looking at all the history,” freshman guard Alyssa Baron said after the win. “They stress the importance of the Big 5.”

Important it is. More NCAA championships have come home to Philadelphia than any other city in America. The Big 5 schools play in the Ivy League, the Atlantic 10 and the Big East. But for a few weeks each year, it is bragging rights, plain and simple, that rule the courts of Brotherly Love.

Love, however, has been hard to come by for the Quakers lately. In addition to the women’s six-year skid, the men have gone almost four years to the day since winning a Big 5 game.

Has Penn become irrelevant to titans like Villanova and Temple, teams that constantly show up in national rankings?

Yes — and no. The stratification of the programs has put Penn at a definite disadvantage. But the magic of a Big 5 win — or better yet an upset — still hangs thick in the sweltering Palestra air when two local foes convene at the Cathedral of College Basketball.

For Penn students, it is trying to watch their Red and Blue go an entire four years without a Big 5 win. The fans lose appreciation for the significance of the rivalry.

For the players, however, it is the elephant in the room, a weight they will carry for the next day as they enter the final Big 5 game of the year. Saturday’s match against St. Joseph’s will be the last chance for Penn’s seniors to get a first taste of the magic.

Since the Big 5’s inception in 1955, no class of Quakers has graduated without a single win in the series.

Will Saturday be the night a woeful record is set? Not if history has anything to say. And if that fails, there’s always the magic.

CALDER SILCOX is a junior science, technology and society major from Washington, D.C., and is Senior Sports Editor-elect of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is silcox@theDP.com.

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