Throwback Thursday: 90 Years of the Palestra

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Very few places in college basketball can match the history of Penn’s Palestra in Philadelphia. Fordham’s Rose Hill Gym is older, but the Palestra has played home to countless Penn Quaker games, Big 5 games, and the occasional 1-game playoff in the Ivy League.

Tuesday night, Penn celebrated the 90th birthday of the Palestra during their game against Ivy League archrival Princeton. Unfortunately for the locals, Princeton crashed the party with a 64-49 victory. It won’t be the last time Princeton visits the Palestra this year – for the first time in league history, a 4-team tournament will take place at the Palestra during Championship Week. Penn has a long way to go just to make the tournament in its inaugural season, however.

But there have been plenty of good times for Penn since the opening of the Palestra in 1927. They have won or shared the Ivy League regular season title 32 times (the last title was in 2007). They have 23 NCAA Tournament appearances to their credit, including 5 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite 8s,  and a Final 4 team in 1979 (click here for a recap of their unlikely run to the Final Four in Salt Lake City that season). Many of their notable coaches include Jack McCloskey, Chuck Daly, Bob Weinhauer, Craig Littlepage and Fran Dunphy. Notable players include Matt Maloney, Ugonna Onyekwe, Michael Jordan (not former Washington Wizard Michael Jordan), and Jerome Allen.

The Big 5 in Philadelphia goes back to 1955 – this is the annual round-robin series between Penn, Villanova, Temple, Saint Joseph’s and La Salle. Temple leads the way with 27 titles (shared and outright), Villanova has won 25, Saint Joe’s has won 20, Penn has won 13 times and La Salle has won 11 times. For many years, there were 2 national title banners that were also promiently displayed at the Palestra – La Salle’s 1954 NCAA Championship and Villanova’s 1985 NCAA Championship. There was a period from 1992 through 1999 where the full round-robin was not played; each team has played the full round-robin since 2000.

As for other postseason tournaments, the Palestra has also been home for a number of Atlantic 10 Tournament games. All of the games except the championship games were played at the Palestra from 1989 to 1995; the championship games were played at the respective campus sites of the time (i.e. Penn State, Temple, UMass). The MEAC also had their tournament at the Palestra in 1985 – North Carolina A&T defeated Howard for the title that season.

As for the NCAA Tournament, the Palestra played host to the East Regional 5 times (the last one being in 1977) and East sub-regionals 13 other times (the last one being a set of play-in games in 1984). The Palestra at the time had hosted the most NCAA Tournament games of any facility – they would later be surpassed by UD Arena when they became the annual host of the Opening Round/First Four games beginning in 2001.

As stated earlier, other schools have also played games at the Palestra. Saint Joe’s played their home games at the Palestra in the 2008-09 season when Hagan Arena was being renovated for the Hawks. In the 2014-15 season, the Palestra was the site of a 1-game playoff between Harvard and Yale – Harvard defeated the Bulldogs 53-51 to win the Ivy League and advance to the NCAA Tournament. Earlier this season, Penn State also defeated Michigan 72-63 at the Palestra as a homecoming game for numerous players on the Penn State roster.