Looks Like There Will Be A Philly Team At The Big Dance After All

Ah, college basketball. I'm essentially indifferent towards you - until March. Then I care quite a bit. This of course does not make me different than quite a few Americans, especially those from Philadelphia. The great thing about growing up here is that you can root for any one of six different teams (LaSalle, Temple, St. Joes, Villanova, Drexel and Penn) come tourney time, provided none of them are your alma mater. And even then, you can root for another one of them to succeed. (The downside of having these six teams is that they all fight for local talent and therefore, with a few rare exceptions, none of them are ever that good.)

At least one of them, however, is always pretty good. There hadn't been a year in my lifetime where one Philly team didn't make it to the NCAAs. This year, however, was shaping up to be that year. (The last time it happened was 30 years ago.) Nova is too young. Ditto for LaSalle. Penn somehow didn't win the Ivy League. Drexel was Drexel. And St. Joes and Temple were both decent teams peaking at the right time, but it seemed like too little too late. Until last night.

St. Joes(#5 seed) upset Xavier(#1) for the second time in two weeks in one A10 conference semi final, and Temple (#2) cruised past Charlotte(#6) in the other. Considering the one of these teams has to win the A10, and therefore will secure an automatic bid in the tourney, the streak of Philly appearances will live on. (It's also possible at this point that both of these teams will make it, with the loser gaining an at large bid.)

So there you go. The game is tonight, and I couldn't care less who wins. (Temple probably will.) Now I've got a rooting interest in the tournament, even if it will almost definitely be over by the end of the first round. After that, at least I"ll still (hopefully) have Butler.