It was March 1977.
Elvis was still alive, the Clash had yet to matter, and a little movie named Star Wars was seemingly in a galaxy far, far away.
In Philadelphia, the beloved Big Five was still playing all its games at the Palestra. But for whatever reason, La Salle, Penn, St. Joseph's, Temple and Villanova failed to reach the NCAA tournament for a second consecutive year.
It was the last time the Big Five was left out of what is now commonly called March Madness. However, 31 years later, the city's schools - including Drexel - are in danger of being excluded when the field of 65 teams is announced on March 16.
Whitey Rigsby remembers the feeling vividly - although there was no such thing as Selection Sunday in 1977. Rigsby, then a junior guard at Villanova, had a much more visceral reason for recalling the occurrence: he missed the shot that could have sent the Wildcats to the Big Dance.
"I remember it very well," said Rigsby, now the color commentator for Villanova radio. "We went to the championship of the [Eastern Conference Basketball League] tournament at the Spectrum against [guard] Norm Nixon's Duquesne team."
Rollie Massimino's Wildcats had beaten the Dukes earlier in the season, but Duquesne led, 55-54, with 45 seconds left as Villanova held for the last shot. The Cats, though, had trouble finding their star Keith Herron, and with the clock winding down Rigsby forced a desperation layup.
"I missed a six-footer," Rigsby said. "But it wasn't like Rollie drew the play up for me."
Duquesne earned the automatic bid into the NCAA and Villanova - without the benefit of an at-large berth - had to settle for the NIT, which still had some prestige.
Rigsby, to this day, remembers The Inquirer in the following fall previewing the upcoming season. Recounting the fateful miss, the story described Rigsby's shot as "almost hard enough to dislodge the iron from the Spectrum backboard."
"It was a shame," Rigsby said. "That was a pretty good team."
The four other teams weren't so bad either, each with a record of .500 or better. The coaches were some of the best. Aside from Massimino, who would go on to win a national title in 1985, three of the other four eventually coached in the pros.
Penn's Chuck Daly and La Salle's Paul Westhead won NBA crowns. Temple's Don Casey had two stops in the big leagues.
