Hello, everyone. Just a quick preface, welcome to our first game day post. If you haven’t yet, and you have the time, go check out our first post introducing this project. Thanks for stopping by, please give us a follow on Twitter, and I hope you enjoy what we’ve got so far!

La Salle University Explorers

Gym: Tom Gola Arena

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Conference: Atlantic 10

Conference Championships: 8

Tournament Appearances: 12

National Championships: 1 (1954)

Opponent: Temple University (Rivalry; Philadelphia Big 5)

La Salle University is certainly not the sexiest name in college hoops. If you’re not very familiar with the program, you might have been surprised to see their resume includes a number of conference championships, tournament appearances, and even a national championship. Within the context of Philadelphia ball, they don’t quite have the reputation of their rivals; they don’t have the basketball success of most other area schools, the academic prestige, the brand recognition. However, La Salle does have a rich basketball tradition, competes well in what is personally my favorite conference in college basketball, has a close-knit fan base, and their squad proudly represents their small community on a national stage. For a school of its size and resources, the Explorers punch well above their weight.

None of this is to say La Salle isn’t a great school; the private Catholic school has a beautiful and award-winning campus, and the school is extremely progressive considering its religious affiliation (co-ed dorms, gender-neutral bathrooms, alcohol permission as examples). It also boasts our beloved mayor, Jim Kenney, and our less than beloved Temple basketball coach, Fran Dunphy, as alumni (among, of course, many others). The school is one of the older in Philadelphia, and go check out their Wikipedia page for an interesting history about their current campus (which is their 4th in school history; they used to be North Broad Street neighbors with Temple).

La Salle has fielded varsity basketball since 1931, and enjoyed the bulk of its success in the post-World War II period into the mid 70’s. They won the NCAA Tournament in Kansas City over Bradley in 1954, were runners-up to San Francisco a year later. They also won the NIT in 1952, when there was still debate over which post-season tournament was the stronger of the two. While the Explorers officially have one national championship, they may have won the most competitive college basketball tournament in 1952 as well.

La Salle has appeared in the AP Top 25 poll, an institution established in 1948, in 14 different seasons, including 7 seasons in a row beginning in 1949-50. They claimed the #1 ranking twice, both in the 50’s, and have not appeared in the rankings since the 1989-90 season. 21 NBA players have played for the Explorers, including Hall of Famer Tom Gola (1955), eight-time All-Star Larry Foust (1950), and Rasual Butler (2002). Gary Neal is the most recent Explorer to make their way to the NBA, making an appearance on the Hawks roster last NBA season. He’s currently playing in Spain.

Under current coach John Giannini, who took over in 2004, La Salle has mostly been consistently average, which has been no simple feat for the small school in an Atlantic 10 conference that has boasted some very strong teams, often featuring multiple top-25 squads that play in packed, intimidating buildings. They have never won the conference, regular season or tournament (their last conference championship coming in the MAAC in 1992), but they did make a Cinderella Sweet 16 run in 2013 in their first tournament appearance in 21 years.

The Outlook

Temple-La Salle being a part of the Big 5 means both sets of fans get up for this matchup, which is held every year, with either school alternating hosting. What made this game interesting is that unlike most Big 5 games hosted by La Salle, this game was happening on La Salle’s campus at Tom Gola Arena, instead of the Palestra at the University of Pennsylvania. Gola is much smaller than the Palestra, seating 3,400, meaning the game was certain to be sold out. However, it also meant the crowd would be predominantly La Salle fans, unlike games at the Palestra where fans are split, and both schools get tickets allocated for their student sections. There were definitely going to be a healthy number of Temple fans at the game (a number of tickets was allocated for sale by the Temple box office), however, and I didn’t expect the atmosphere to be any less electric than those at the Palestra.

La Salle came into the game at 3-3 after a 3-0 start, which included a thrilling double-overtime winner in their first Big 5 game of the season at the Palestra against Penn. They were picked to finish 9th in the 14 team Atlantic 10. Temple was the clear favorite, despite it being a true road game with the site being Gola Arena. Although the Owls were picked to finish 7th in the American, expectations were much higher around the Owls program, returning a talented group, adding three 4-star recruits, and senior leader Josh Brown coming back after sitting out his 4th year with an injury. Temple was 3-0, coming off two wins over power conference opponents in their championship effort at the Charleston Classic, and had received a handful of points in the AP Poll the previous week.

The Town

Seeing La Salle listed as being in Philadelphia may give you the wrong idea about what kind of campus it is. Yes, it is within the boundaries of the city of Philadelphia, but the campus is spread out rather comfortably in a low-density neighborhood in the outer stretches of North Philly along Olney Avenue. It’s a very green school, with plenty of trees and open space, pretty far removed from the urban atmosphere you may have been imagining if you are unfamiliar with the school. If you aren’t looking for La Salle, chances are, you won’t find it. I’ve lived in Philadelphia for over five years (and have had plenty of jobs that have sent me all over the metro area), and had never stepped foot on the campus, aside from a handful of times driving through, until I ventured up for this game. It’s also pretty rare to run into La Salle students or alumni, as it is such a small school (only about 5,000 students between undergrad and grad), and they seem not to venture down into the city too often. La Salle mostly attracts in-state students, and about half of them are commuters.

Corner of Broad and Olney, where you get off the subway for Gola Arena

You really have to have two separate conversations in this section about La Salle. On one hand, you are in Philadelphia, a huge city that leaves nothing to be desired in terms of entertainment options (including five division one basketball programs within city limits). If Philadelphia wasn’t my favorite city in the world, I wouldn’t still live here. On the other, the sleepy campus is pretty far removed from the hustle-and-bustle of Center City and surrounding neighborhoods, and there is virtually NOTHING to do near La Salle. No bars, no restaurants, nothing. If you’re looking for Starbucks or Subway, then you’re in luck, but if you were hoping to have a beer on or near campus before heading over to the game, it’s not really an option.

Sun setting behind La Salle’s campus, looking west along Olney Ave.

A major advantage La Salle has, though, is that Gola Arena is a 10-15 minute walk from a stop on the Broad Street subway line, which will get you to City Hall in probably 20 minutes. If you do come into town for a La Salle game, you can spend time in an area along either of the subway lines (yes, we only have two), of which there are plenty of great ones, and give yourself 60-90 minutes before the game, depending on where you are, to find your way to a station, wait for a train (two if you have to transfer), get yourself up to the Olney stop, and walk over to Gola.

One thing I want to address is the idea that La Salle is in a “bad” area. This is absolutely not true, and you are in no danger going to an Explorers game. I went to the game with one of my good friends that I graduated from Temple with, who grew up in the Philadelphia area. When he told his dad we were heading up to La Salle for the game, he told him to make sure we took an Uber instead of the subway like we had planned. For one reason or another, the area La Salle is in has a rough reputation. The walk from the subway stop to La Salle is lined with beautiful middle-class single-family homes on one side, and the campuses of two prestigious Philadelphia high schools on the other. Yea, you might get asked for a dollar near the subway station, but if you can’t handle handing someone a dollar, or saying “no, I’m sorry”, you shouldn’t be hanging out in a Northeastern city to begin with.

College Hall, La Salle University

We didn’t spend any time exploring (get it?) La Salle’s campus like we’d planned. We dragged our feet a bit getting onto the subway, and had to get right into the gym when we got there to make sure we had plenty of time to settle in and check out the building a bit before tipoff. We had planned to take a detour through campus getting back to the subway after the game, as neither of us had really seen much of the campus before, but, spoiler alert, the game ended up not going well for our Owls, and the only thing we wanted to do after the game was get out of there. We did walk along the northern edge of the campus walking to Gola, and had a nice view of much of the grounds from the second-story concourse once inside. La Salle does have its one big beautiful old gothic style, classically collegiate building, but many of the school’s structures are quite modern. The school has occupied that campus since the 30’s, but it sounds like it’s only been within the last decade that the school has consolidated all of the land that is its main campus (they have a few buildings a neighborhood over) and fleshed it out.

The Facility/Logistics

TruMark Financial Center, which houses Tom Gola Arena, from the parking lot

Tom Gola Arena, named after the Philadelphia native and La Salle great that led the Explorers to the national championship in 1954, is pretty much as classic college basketball gym as you can get. It’s a modest facility with a small capacity, the classic two-stand design typical of college hoops. It is relatively new, built in the late 90’s to house the Explorers team that hadn’t called their campus home since the 50’s. They spent the intervening years at the Palestra, the old Philadelphia Convention Hall (which had been sitting mostly empty for over 20 years before La Salle moved in in the 80’s), and the Spectrum after that had been vacated by the professional teams for the current Wells Fargo Center.

Entrance to Tom Gola Arena

Gola is a simple gym, with one general admission entrance, a small entrance foyer where one employee is scanning all of the tickets in front of a small stand selling $1 programs. Two sets of stairs, one on either side of the foyer, bring you up to the concourse level, which is also pretty modest. What is essentially a long rectangular room houses a small concession stand, an almost makeshift little apparel section, a few displays of La Salle sports memorabilia, and the interview/media room. There is a great view from that level south over campus, towards Center City. While I didn’t get anything from the concession stand, it seemed there were only a handful of options, which were reasonably priced, and beer was not served.

The little entrance foyer; doesn’t look like it’s received much of a face lift since it opened in the 90’s

Stepping out of the concourse area, a few more steps bring you up to the entrance to the court itself. When you walk through the doors, you are on the court right along the baseline, practically able to reach out and touch the La Salle players taking warmups. You have to squeeze around the cheerleaders (the Temple squad was on that side) and the courtside seats onto the pull-out bleachers our seats were in. Only the front portion of the stand we were in were full seats, with the opposite end having bleacher-only seating.

The second-story concession area

The tickets to this game were expensive, as both sets of fans were trying to squeeze into the 3,400 seat facility. We paid $40 a piece after fees on Stubhub after I made the mistake of not contacting Temple’s box office to see if we had an allocation (which we did, for $20 a ticket). I didn’t love dropping that much, considering my student ID is still valid and I go to home games for free, but this was the first time Temple had played at Gola since I started as a student over 5 years ago, and who knows when they’ll host this game on their campus again. It was a necessary financial sacrifice.

*A quick addition to this section, La Salle fans wanted to make sure to clarify to me that their tickets from their box office are some of the cheapest in the area. You can get into Gola for between $15 and $25 for most games.*

Getting to La Salle can either be pretty simple, or a total nightmare. I live right along the subway line that takes you all the way up towards their campus, and it took about 45 minutes for me and my friend to leave our neighborhood, wait for a train, take it up to the Olney stop, walk to Gola, and get into our seats. Like I mentioned earlier, taking the subway isn’t difficult at all. Driving, however, would likely be pretty difficult and frustrating if you aren’t familiar with the area. The only way to go that doesn’t require pushing through city streets for multiple miles takes you on I-76, which is notoriously congested every day of the week. However, parking seems rather simple, and I don’t imagine it to be too expensive. There is a parking lot next to the arena, and as we were leaving, we saw plenty of people hopping in cars street-parked right along Olney Ave. directly adjacent to the gym.

The Atmosphere

I was expecting big things from the crowd at this game, but to be honest, at first, I was a bit disappointed. When we first got to the facility, most of the people filing in were Temple fans, and once we got to our seats, we found the stands mostly empty, and most of the people who had found their seats to be in Temple cherry and white. It seemed as though it would end up being a home game for us. There was no clear student section, and little La Salle presence leading up to what was one of their biggest games of the season.

It turns out, the Explorers fans were just a little late getting to the party. When the game tipped off, there were still chunks of empty seats, but eventually, most seats were occupied. Besides the area behind the Temple bench, and a section of a few hundred fans clustered up near the ceiling in one section of seats, everyone in the building was there to see the Explorers.

Not only were the La Salle fans late getting to their seats, but it took them a while to get into the game. The first ten or so minutes of the game, Temple fans were the loud and active group. By the time the seats had mostly filled in, Temple had opened an early 5, 7 point lead, and looked on their way to a comfortable win. However, as the Explorers hung around and made their first run, La Salle fans started getting into the game. I thought the roof was going to come off the building when the Explorers forced a turnover and hit a transition layup that cut Temple’s lead to two towards the end of the first half.

The entrance area to the gym floor

The second half was absolutely electric. Temple pulled out to an 11 point lead, but La Salle kept themselves within striking distance, and both sets of fans went back and forth with competing vocal efforts. Because the gym is so small, everyone’s voice is able to carry onto the court. Folks in the back rows can clearly hear players, referees, and coaches communicating, and this has the effect of tons of fans constantly yelling things onto the court towards the players and officials. Because there was a large contingent of fans from each side, as the game wore on, every foul called was met with a roar of disapproval that certainly reached the ears of their intended targets. Of course at every sporting event, fans yell things towards the playing surface, but the intimacy of Gola encouraged a lot more of that kind of behavior. I loved it.

Every time I thought the building couldn’t get any louder, it did. As La Salle cut the Temple lead to 6, 3, 1, and took their first lead as the second half neared its close, it just got louder and louder. Much of the credit for La Salle’s victory that night has to go to their awesome fans. It was clear the louder the building got, the more rattled Temple became on offense. In the last couple minutes, when the score was tight and the building at its loudest, the Temple offense totally shut down. The kids looked like deer in headlights, no one wanted the ball, and at least one turnover was directly forced by the players not being able to effectively communicate. After 3 neutral court games played in front of practically no one, Temple was not ready for that kind of atmosphere.

One thing I was very surprised about was the lack of participation from the La Salle student section. They are set up directly across from the camera along the sideline, and from what I’ve seen from watching La Salle home games on tv and in highlights from Gola and the Palestra, their student section is generally loud and involved. My first time seeing La Salle at Liacouras Center at Temple, they brought a large amount of students who made noise all game as they traded shouts and insults with us. On this day, they remained seated and inactive except for a couple of “defense” chants. All of the energy came from the general crowd. There also wasn’t a band, and the fight song, which no one knew the words to (or at least didn’t participate in) was played over speakers. However, both sets of cheerleaders and both mascots were present, which made for a fun addition.

One of the coolest traditions of the Big 5, and one that La Salle holds more consistently than the other schools, is the throwing of streamers after the first points of the game are scored. When La Salle hit their first bucket, everyone immediately hurled hundreds of yellow* gold and blue streamers onto the court, and there was a delay of a couple of minutes while it was cleaned up. Also following with Big 5 tradition, the technical foul free throw that was given to Temple as a result of the streamers was intentionally violated, and Temple was given possession without the extra point. Streamers that didn’t find the court after La Salle’s first two points did so when the final buzzer sounded.

*Thank you to the Explorer that corrected me, La Salle’s colors are actually blue and gold! From La Salle’s alma mater: “Above Explorers valiant; Here under thine eyes; Thy blue and gold banners; Unfurl ‘neath the skies”

All in all, despite the slow start, the atmosphere was fantastic. The back and forth between the two sets of fans made for something spectacular most gyms don’t get to experience every season.

Streamers getting cleaned up; most of those bleachers would fill in

The Game

As I’ve mentioned in previous sections, the hosts left with the victory on this night. Despite Temple holding the lead for most of the game, and occasionally extending it to double-digits, La Salle kept the game close enough throughout; they hit their shots, only missed one free throw the entire game, and Giannini made sure the Explorers controlled the tempo and played a slow game (the same way they gave Villanova a serious scare a few weeks later). Combined with Temple’s inability to execute down the stretch, and their complete collapse under the pressure of a packed gym absolutely rocking, La Salle closed out their comeback with an 87-83 victory. Temple, who was knocking on the door of national relevance, with a squad said to be the most talented in years, dropped their first game of the season, and regrouped to dominate a South Carolina team coming off a Final Four appearance later that week. La Salle got on a plane to play a tournament in Belfast, where they went 1-1, losing to Towson in the championship game.

Conclusion

La Salle is a really neat little school to catch a game at. It is absolutely the quintessential mid-major, small Catholic school experience. Their dedicated fans are passionate, and the heritage of their proud program screams at you from the second you walk through Gola’s doors. And no, Gola isn’t Cameron, La Salle isn’t Kentucky, and don’t expect the first overall pick in the 2020 NBA draft to be suiting up in Explorers blue and yellow gold. However, if you live in the area, or if you’re a fan of an Atlantic 10 team looking for a trip to see your squad, come to town, spend a few hours or a few days discovering this awesome city, and get up there for a game. A La Salle game itself probably wouldn’t end up on the bucket list of the casual college basketball fan, but coming to experience college hoops in the greatest college hoops city in the world should be. When you’re here to catch a Big 5 game at the Palestra, or to see top ranked Villanova take on a Big East opponent at Wells Fargo Center, try to carve a few hours out of your itinerary to get up to Olney Ave. A game at La Salle is so spectacularly run-of-the-mill, and that’s what makes it a special experience you won’t find in every city or in every conference.

On deck: Rutgers University