Since its opening in 1927, The Palestra, home of the Pennsylvania Quakers, has stood as a monument celebrating college basketball. Despite the sport’s big-money evolution, the Palestra remains a hoops landmark and plays host to the Philadelphia Big Five, one of the most unique rivalries in college sports.

‘So many coaches say there is no place like the Palestra,’ said Paul Rubincam, who played basketball at Penn in the late ’50s before becoming the school’s athletic director from 1985-1994. ‘The atmosphere it produces is unique, a sort of ‘theatre in the round’ so to speak.’

Much of the mystique of this humble brick building nestled on the eastern corner of Penn’s campus lies in its age. At 79 years old, no college arena has hosted more regular or postseason games.

The Palestra’s true fame, though, comes from the raucous crowds that frequent the arena. Just over 8,700 fans routinely pack themselves shoulder-to-shoulder on the steel benches that line the stuffy square bandbox. The intimacy, if not discomfort, of this college basketball relic only adds to its charm and facilitates the rowdy Palestra crowds that seemingly to spill onto the floor.

‘Everybody’s built (these new arenas) and they’re huge and seat 20,000 people, but they’re impersonal,’ Rubincam said. ‘The Palestra is kind of the opposite of that.’

The Palestra’s unique personality quickly made the arena a bastion for a game that had yet to find a popular place in American sports culture. It hosted the inaugural NCAA championship in 1939, decades before the tournament would reach true prominence.

‘To say it fostered the growth of college basketball would be an understatement,’ said filmmaker and Penn graduate Mikaelyn Austin, who recently completed a documentary on the Penn arena entitled ‘The Palestra: Cathedral of Basketball.’

‘I don’t think there is any other gym that fostered the game while it was still in its infancy more,’ she said.

Despite its national prominence, though, the Palestra would become best known in Philadelphia as the host of the Big Five city series.

The Big Five, created in 1955, consists of five Philadelphia area schools: Saint Joseph’s, Temple, La Salle, Villanova and Penn. Prior to 1955, these schools, despite their proximity, never played each other. That year, Penn administrators organized an annual series in which each of the five schools would play in a round-robin format, with each game being played at The Palestra. The quality of each of the five programs made the Big Five a rivalry unlike any other in the country.

‘No other city had that kind of intense basketball going on,’ said Austin, who also played women’s basketball at Penn before graduating in 2004. ‘(The Big Five) developed into, I would argue, the most storied tradition in college basketball.’

For 30 years, the Palestra hosted every city series game. The crowds that packed the dusty gym for these contests were always divided, with the verbal jousting of each school’s students, cheerleaders and alumni mimicking the intensity of the teams on the court. That atmosphere, unique to the cozy Palestra, made the Big Five both a spectacle and a Philadelphia tradition.

Fran Dunphy has dedicated his basketball career to the Big Five. A Philadelphia native, Dunphy played basketball at La Salle from 1967-1970 before coaching Penn for 17 years from 1989-2006. Dunphy, now in his first year as head coach at Temple, knows the rivalry and its seasoned home better than most.

‘I remember as a little kid watching Big Five games and going down to the Palestra,’ Dunphy said. ‘I think even back then it was a part of the fabric of Philadelphia sports. To me the Palestra is as much a part of the Big Five as the teams itself.’

The dynamics of college basketball have changed greatly, though, since the Big Five’s inception. The game that the Palestra helped nurture has grown into a sport dominated by financial and commercial motives. While the arena still hosts most of the city series contests, Villanova and Temple have moved their Big Five home games away from The Palestra in favor of their own lucrative buildings. Local rivalries like the Big Five have taken a backseat to the cash cow that is the NCAA Tournament, the very same tournament that got its start in The Palestra.

‘In the old days, if you won the city series it was a huge deal,’ Dunphy said. ‘Today the biggest threat of having a disappointing season is not making the tournament.’

Yet even though the very game it cultivated appears to have left the Palestra in the dust, this brick relic remains an Eden for basketball purists. Every game the old Palestra hosts serves as a celebration of college basketball before skyboxes and corporate sponsorship.

‘It seems that every coach has some sort of connection to The Palestra and makes it a priority to play there at some point during their careers,’ Austin said. ‘I think as long as that continues (the Palestra) will continue to be the landmark that it is.’

Worth the wait

Prized Ohio State recruit Greg Oden made his debut on Saturday night after being sidelined since June following surgery on ligaments in his right wrist. The center posted a healthy stat line of 14 points, 10 rebounds and 5 blocks, despite doing most of his ball-handling and shooting with his weaker left hand. Oden’s next on-court opportunity is this Saturday at home against Cleveland State, but the 7-foot-1 freshman’s first true test won’t come until Dec. 23rd, when the Buckeyes visit currently seventh-ranked Florida.

This Week’s BMOC

This week’s award goes to Louisiana State senior forward Glen Davis. The 6-foot-9, 289-pound Davis, known as ‘Big Baby,’ proved this week that his prowess last March was no fluke. Davis posted 24 points and 10 rebounds in No. 11 LSU’s 64-52 defeat of No. 6 Texas A&M on Tuesday. Earlier in the week, Davis netted 20 points and 13 boards in another LSU victory at Tulane. Overall this season, Davis is averaging 19.7 points and 9.8 rebounds a game, leading the team in both categories.