You better be there

Tomorrow night's Penn - Saint Joseph's matchup is key to the Big 5 race, as three teams - Villanova, St. Joe's and Penn - could still bring home the hardware. In addition, Penn's Big 5 games have all been instant classics this year, from the near-comeback win over Villanova to the 93-92 nail biter over La Salle to of course the win over Fran Dunphy and Temple on Wednesday.

But if you're not one of the 8,000-some fans who have bought tickets to the soldout Palestra tomorrow, you're SOL.

The game isn't on network television, it's not on ESPN, not on Comcast SportsNet, not on CN8, or even CSTV. Well, if you have high speed internet access, for this game only it's free on pennathletics.com, but like many other college Web sites on every future occasion you'll have to shell out some cash for it. So for games like this, you have to be there to see it.

But this lack of a TV provider is nothing new. In fact, four of the other 9 total Big 5 games are not on TV. And if you take away Villanova (which gets on TV 17 times this season), only one of six Big 5 games can be seen locally.

This seems ridiculous considering Philadelphia is a city where college basketball is big. It's especially odd at a time when none of the major four professional teams (Eagles, Phillies, Flyers and Sixers) are playing.

La Salle is on CSN four times, but only once for a Big 5 game, Penn is only ever on CN8, a channel I don't get in my apartment and most people at Penn don't receive, and Temple played Villanova on ESPNU...over winter break. We don't get that channel (an ESPN branch targeting college fans) in session here, let alone at home.

Here's the 2006-07 Big 5 TV schedule:

Penn - 'Nova: CN8
Penn - La Salle: None
Penn - St. Joe's: None
Penn - Temple: CN8
'Nova - La Salle: CSN
'Nova - St. Joe's: ESPN 2
'Nova - Temple: ESPNU
La Salle - St. Joe's: None
La Salle - Temple: None
St. Joe's - Temple: None