Officially Official: No Philadelphia Men’s Team in March Madness for First Time Since 1977

The March Madness bracket was released on Sunday night, officially confirming what we were rather easily able to deduce on Saturday. Zero Philadelphia-area teams are going dancing in 2023.

Here’s the full bracket, via CBS:

At least we don’t have to do the obligatory “is Villanova a Philly school?” column this year.

Final results for our local college basketball teams:

• Villanova: 17-16 (10-10 in Big East)
• Temple: 16-16 (10-8 in the American)
• Drexel: 17-15 (10-8 in Colonial)
• Penn: 17-13 (9-5 in Ivy)
• St. Joe’s: 16-17 (8-10 in Atlantic 10)
• La Salle:  15-19 (7-11 in Atlantic 10)

Penn had the best shot. They were 17-11 at one point, and 9-4 in the conference, but couldn’t beat Princeton this year. Nova lost to Creighton in the conference tournament and that was it for them. No miracle run from the other teams, either.

So yeah, 1977 was about 45 years ago. Star Wars was opening in movie theaters. Jimmy Carter had just taken office and Fleetwood Mac was releasing the Rumours album. It’s been some time since we had a March Madness donut like this one.

The troublesome thing is that this might not be a blip on the radar. Jay Wright is retired, and Nova was totally meh this year. The other five teams don’t stink, but they’re very average and hovering right around .500. Do you see one of Temple, Drexel, Penn, La Salle, or St. Joe’s taking a significant step forward next season? I don’t.

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