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Time for a Big Six?

All through the 1960s and 1970s, as the Big Five was creating its noisy legend inside the Palestra, Drexel, a little urban ragamuffin just around the corner, had to peek longingly through closed doors.

All through the 1960s and 1970s, as the Big Five was creating its noisy legend inside the Palestra, Drexel, a little urban ragamuffin just around the corner, had to peek longingly through closed doors.

Drexel was a small, faceless engineering school, obscured and overwhelmed by its larger next-door neighbor, Penn. When, a half-century ago, Penn, Villanova, Temple, La Salle and St. Joseph's formed the Big Five, the Dragons, then playing Division II basketball against Haverford, Swarthmore and Pennsylvania Military College, were not considered.

Now, that little ragamuffin has grown up. And if Drexel is not yet the toughest kid on the block, it has certainly managed to rough up some of the city's big boys.

The West Philadelphia university has expanded tremendously under its aggressive president, Constantine Papadakis. It has added medical, law and public-health schools, more than doubled its undergraduate enrollment, and amassed a $423 million endowment that it contends is topped only by Penn and Swarthmore among local colleges.

Its basketball program, now in Division I, has blossomed, too, with the Dragons having been to seven postseason tournaments since 1994. Penn has been to eight in that span, La Salle to none.

And this season, for perhaps the first time ever, Drexel might be the best college basketball team in Philadelphia. Coach Bruiser Flint's Dragons are 15-4 and have beaten Syracuse and three Big Five rivals - Temple, St. Joseph's and Villanova - on their opponents' home floors.

The success has generated a lively new atmosphere for games at the Daskalakis Athletic Center. Students in school colors line up for tickets outside the 2,500-seat arena that historically had been half-empty and as hushed as a library. It also has given rise to a question that for decades few on the cramped city campus dared ask:

Why isn't Drexel in the Big Five?

"It's one of the most frequent questions I get," athletic director Eric Zillmer said.

After all, even though the Big Five has little to cling to these days but its past, nothing prevents it from adding a sixth team. The old and tradition-rich Big Ten added an 11th member with Penn State, and that has been a smashing success.

Drexel's enrollment has grown larger than those of Villanova, La Salle and St. Joseph's. Penn, La Salle, Villanova and Temple were on its 2006-07 schedule. Flint has impeccable Big Five credentials, having starred at St. Joseph's. And Drexel has had a number of locally rooted superstars such as Michael Anderson and Malik Rose.

Now, as the Dragons vie for a Colonial Athletic Association title and the NCAA tournament berth that goes with it, some powerful forces at the university are raising that question.

"Sure, we'd be interested in becoming an official part of the Big Five," Joe Jacovini, chairman of Drexel's board of trustees, said this week. "We've been an unofficial member in recent years. . . . I think it's time."

For that to happen, the Big Five schools would have to ask Drexel to join. There is no formal application process. And since the members recently signed a four-year contract to continue their annual round-robin series, there is no indication Drexel will be asked to join any time soon.

"We understand that at this time it's just not an issue for the other schools," Zillmer said. "It probably won't happen."

Quite frankly, about all that the Big Five has to hold onto these these days are its unbroken traditions. Tamper with that, and you risk extinguishing whatever passion remains.

"The Big Five's real uniqueness is that the five members have been able to continuously play each other . . . for over 50 years," said Vince Nicastro, Villanova's athletic director. "The special tradition that is the Big Five has been predicated upon those five institutions' maintaining the series for so long despite the many challenges they have faced."

In the unlikely event a sixth school would be added, several hurdles would have to be cleared. Foremost among them are the Big East and Atlantic Ten television and scheduling commitments.

They have "been nearly impossible to overcome with only five members," Nicastro said.

Their schedules crammed already with tough conference dates and TV games and their athletic-department coffers in need of more and more home-game revenue, schools might be reluctant to commit their teams to an extra road game against a quality opponent every other year.

"With everything the Big East and Atlantic Ten require from their members, [the Big Five schools] are lucky to still be playing each other, let alone a sixth school," said Paul Rubincam, the Big Five's retired executive director, who still serves as a consultant. "It's probably just too complex."

That's why Drexel has not played a home game against a Big Five opponent in 20 years.

Financially, there would be no incentive for the Dragons.

Although each school has its own standards in reporting financial data to the federal government, Drexel listed basketball-related revenue of $1.7 million in 2005-2006.

Among Big Five schools, La Salle had the lowest total ($1.9 million) and Villanova the highest ($5.3 million).

Very little of that money comes from their Big Five affiliation. Although the organization hosts annual luncheons, maintains a Hall of Fame and selects an annual all-star team, it offers little revenue to its members beyond ticket receipts for its games.

With its members now attached more closely to their conferences than to their rivals in the historic alliance, the Big Five no longer has a TV or radio contract.

As the explosion of conferences and cable television began to alter the face of college basketball, the Big Five had what was then a lucrative deal with Prism, the defunct local cable station.

The local schools earned as much as $20,000 for a Prism television appearance, a payday that was jeopardized when Villanova sought a reduction in its round-robin commitments.

Dan Baker, the Big Five's executive director from 1981 to 1996, began to explore a number of possibilities, including one that would have replaced Villanova with Drexel.

"I asked the people at Prism if they would accept Drexel as a replacement," said Baker, now a Drexel broadcaster. "They said absolutely not. It would devalue the package significantly . . . [and] the other schools didn't want it."

Since then, Drexel has functioned as an ex-officio member. When Big Five tripleheaders were played at the Palestra, the Dragons were the sixth team. And Drexel has been willing to go wherever it must to face Big Five rivals.

"That," Flint said, "is something that's going to have to change."

In fact, the need for change to enliven the Big Five might be Drexel's best bet for eventual membership.

"The Big Five has been a wonderful tradition for a long time," Jacovini said. "But things change. I think adding Drexel would give it a little spark, don't you?"