From 1991-92 through 1998-99, the Big 5 wasn’t really the Big 5. Instead, during those eight seasons, the spectacle of the city’s five teams all playing one another in a given season was reduced to a lame, round-robin format in which everybody only played one game against two of the others, rather than against all four.

It was a time of great change, really. Conference affiliation was starting to matter. Television was taking over, if it hadn’t already. And financially, it made sense for schools — even Big 5 schools — to play as many home games as possible on campus, rather than at the P, because of the revenue advantages. As far back as the ‘86-87 season, in fact, both Villanova and Temple played their Big 5 “home” games in their own gyms. But with Villanova being in the gauntlet that was (is?) the Big East, the Wildcats — and their coach at the time, Rollie Massimino — did not want to have the bulk of their non-conference schedule loaded with games against city rivals. So they opted out. And for many, the bitterness has lingered ever since. The question, though, is how much of that bitterness was finally put to rest with Rollie’s induction into the Big 5 Hall of Fame last Friday?

There are many who never forgave Villanova — and, by the same token, Rollie — for big-timing the rest of the city like that. The Wildcats had won that national championship in 1985, and the perception of them — fairly or not — seemed to change overnight. Sure, La Salle had those great teams with the L-Train in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and Temple made a few runs to the Elite Eight, including the ‘88 team that was ranked No. 1 in the country for a significant stretch of the season. But with the Big East and all that league was becoming in the ’80s, ‘Nova did seem to be on another level.

Last week, when the Big 5 inducted Massimino into its Hall along with Temple’s John Chaney and La Salle’s Speedy Morris, the specter of what Daddy Mass did by busting up the Big 5 was the elephant in the room: How could the administrators of the city’s five schools pay their highest tribute to the man who was most responsible for essentially busting up the organization those five schools had created?

The Daily News, which did separate stories on Chaney, Massimino and Morris in the days leading up to last Friday’s induction luncheon, did a pretty solid job exploring this topic in its story on Coach Mass. The conclusion? That enough time has passed for any and all wounds to heal. After all, why else would the Big 5 go through the trouble of placing Massimino into the Hall at the same time as Chaney and Speedy? The point was obvious: That despite any fractured feelings, or any old grudges, these guys were all a part of something together. That the Big 5 is above such squabbles, even if it really sucked to have to wait every two years to get payback against Villanova for their having carpet-bagged it out to the Main Line just to play a game no one actually wanted to see against a team — The School of the Blind? The Little Sisters of the Poor? — no one had ever heard of.

So why be bitter? And who says we still are?

Link: Massimino — yes that Massimino — is a Big 5 Hall of Famer [Daily News]

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